Realm of Dreams
by LibidinousPoetaster
Summary: I wrote this story for my fiancee over a year ago and figured that it was about time that it made its way unto the internet. Long story short, Alistair meets Zuko in the Fade and goes on a life-changing field trip with him. And they fall in love. No sex. Sorry to disappoint. But it is funny, and perhaps even touching at times. Your welcome, internet. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1: Lost in a Dream

Chapter One: Lost in a Dream

"It has many names. The Fade. The Spirit Realm. The Realm of the Dead. The Realm of Dreams.

It is the place where magic comes from.

It is the domain of great and powerful spirits and specters, kindly angels and malevolent demons.

It is where dreams originate, as well as nightmares.

It is the ethereal plain of existence that stitches the multiverse together, that connects one universe to another with invisible threads. It acts as a bridge between the worlds, between reality and fiction, between existence and nonexistence.

The Realm of Dreams is unpredictable.

The terrain itself is spontaneous. A traveler who has been walking for many miles in dark caverns full of lava and fire may suddenly find himself in the middle of a snowy wasteland that stretches on for as far as the eye can see.

The creatures within are as fickle as the land. The spirits who call the realm their home are just as likely to put a knife in your gut as they are to point you in the direction of home.

Time means nothing there. A man can walk for eons and only make it a few steps, or complete an impossibly long journey in a matter of seconds.

Yes, the Realm of Dreams is truly unpredictable. It is wild. It is random.

And yet, it is the greatest consistency in all the worlds and all the universes, for aren't they all connected by it? No matter how different they may be, no matter how impossibly far away from each other they are, do they not all have this in common? Do not all the inhabitants of these worlds touch the Realm of Dreams in their sleep? Do they not all manipulate the Fade when they do their sorcery, their wizardry, their magic? Do they not all, upon the ceasing of their hearts and the ending of their mortal lives, have to traverse the Spirit Realm in their journey to the Land Beyond?

The Realm of Dreams is everywhere, and yet it is also nowhere. It exists outside the universe—outside all the universes, and indeed, perhaps outside the multiverse itself. It exists in space that transcends space, both before the beginning of time and well after its end, and right on the border between life and death.

So, to answer your question, human, you are nowhere and everywhere all at once.

You are in the realm beyond space and time, beyond the universe, beyond the heap of flesh and blood you call your body.

You are in the place where magic comes from.

You are in the place where the spirits of the dead walk.

You are in the place where mortals wander in their slumber.

You are within the Realm of Dreams."

The mortal man just stood there for a moment, taking all this in. He did his best to avoid staring at the fearsome demon who was addressing him, looking instead at the space around him. Above and below him there was nothing but the blue-and-purple-tinged blackness of the Void, which was only illuminated by the occasional twinkling of a star, moon, or other celestial body. He stood on a rocky platform which floated—miraculously suspended in midair by some unknown force— above what was surely a never-ending fall into the icy cold emptiness of eternity. He was at a crossroads of sorts; a place at which a dozen other floating pathways of stone forked off in random directions.

And there, at the opposite end of the platform, stooping at the junction of all the paths and effectively blocking his way forward, was the demon. Try as he might, the man found that he could not avoid looking at it; the grotesque ebony-black shape—like a shadow, but too real, too solid, too substantial—with fiery red eyes, who, were it not for the multitude of horns, spikes, and tentacles that jutted out of his entire body at random intervals, might have seemed vaguely humanoid.

The man scratched a thin layer of stubble on his chin nervously. Finally, he spoke.

"Err…yeah, I know that. When I asked where I was, I sort of meant it more…specifically. You know?"

The demon blinked. The man swallowed timidly, but continued.

"What I, uh, meant, was…where in the Fade—err, or the Realm of Dreams, or the Spirit Realm, or whatever—am I? What part? Whose domain? Which demon's kingdom?"

"Oh. Is that all you wanted to know?" asked the demon sheepishly, or at least as sheepishly as a terrifying specter from another plain of existence could manage. "Well then. That is actually a much easier question to answer without resorting to philosophical conjecture and speculation." The demon gestured to the surrounding land. "This is my domain. I am the Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casual Soul-Devouring."

"Casual Soul-Devouring?" asked the man after a brief hesitation.

"It's just a hobby, really."

"Ah."

There was a short pause.

"So…do you, err, plan on…well, you know, devouring my soul?"

"That would be traditional, yes."

"Ah." Said the mortal, rather crestfallen. That was definitely a bad omen. Perhaps if he changed the subject, though, the demon would forget. It was worth a shot.

"Uh, so your realm includes this colossal labyrinth of floating earthen pathways, does it?" he asked, doing his best to sound impressed.

"Err…well, I mean basically…" The Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casual Soul-Devouring stuttered, doing his best to look embarrassed but still coming across as moderately horrifying. "I mean I…uh, no. No. Not really. The pathways themselves lead all over the Realm of Dreams. They belong to whatever demon owns the fief it leads to. I just own this." He stomped on the ground at the area where the pathways met. "This area. The crossroads."

"Oh." Said the man.

"Yeah." Said the Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casual Soul-Devouring.

"Nice place." Said the man, trying to be complimentary. "Very…homey."

"Yeah, well, I chose it because I thought I'd get a lot of traffic, you know? Meet a couple of wayward travelers? Get to explain to them where they are in a lengthy monologue, get their stories started, perhaps relieve them of their soul if it isn't too much trouble? But I don't know…haven't met many mortals these last couple thousand years. I think my real estate agent might have pulled the wool over my eyes, to be honest. She was a Desire Demon. You know how they are, what with their nipple tassels and their sexy goat horns. Now I'm stuck with this worthless little floating rock in the middle of nowhere. I've been thinking about selling it, but it's a down market and I don't know if I'm financially secure enough to risk investing in a new place just yet, you know?"

"Yeah, I hear you buddy." Said the man sympathetically. He considered putting a hand comfortingly on the demon's shoulder, but, after remembering the spikes all over the creature's body, decided against it.

The Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casual Soul-Devouring flinched slightly, suddenly recalling the man's existence.

"What is your name, mortal?" He demanded.

The man grinned shyly.

"Err…I'm Alistair. Nice to, uh, meet you." He extended a hand.  
The Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casual Soul-Devouring stared at it. Alistair withdrew it and used it to scratch his head as nonchalantly as he could manage.

"What are you doing in my realm, Alistair? How did you get here?"

"Dunno, to be honest. The last thing I remember I was talking to my sister, Goldana. I was having dinner with her and her children." Alistair said, straining to remember the events that had gotten him where he was now.

Something about the Fade made it hard to focus, hard to remember what he was doing and why. It was like being drunk, but with a much higher chance of getting lost forever in an eternal nightmare and much lower chance of getting laid. Having a grotesque demon staring down on you like he was trying to set you on fire with his eyes didn't help his concentration, either. He shook his head vigorously to clear his mind and continued.

"But…that was just a dream, wasn't it? Created by the Sloth demon to trap me in the Fade forever? I was rescued from my nightmare by…by somebody… a close friend. They broke the creature's spell on me. Next thing I knew, the whole world was going blurry, and suddenly I found myself here."

"Oh, so you're from the Sloth demons realm, are you?" Said the Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casu—

"Hey, is there something shorter I can call you?" Asked Alistair suddenly, and without any influence from an author who is tired of typing the Demon's really long name over and over again.

"My friends call me Belial." offered the Demon Lord of Long-Winded yada yada yada.

"Great then." Said Alistair. "Belial it is."

"Anyways, as I was saying: So you're from the Sloth Demon's realm, are you?" Said Belial, with blatant contempt. "He's always been a real prick to me, you know that? Used to pick on me back when we were in kindergarten. Knocked me off the swings every day at recess and he stole my crackers and milk at snack time."

"That bastard." Alistair cursed.

"Plus he got all the girls in high school, just because my horns hadn't grown in all the way yet and I had to have braces to fix my overly-prominent front fangs. Also, I may have talked with a lisp, but that's still no excuse. And now that were both fully grown demons, he's still got the better gig; he spends all his days trapping mortals in nightmares and trying to possess mages, and what do I get? A stupid floating rock in the middle of nowhere!" Belial fumed, clenching both of his fists tightly with mounting fury, his eyes a blazing conflagration of hate. He exhaled his rage in a long, drawn-out sigh, but the hate stayed in his eyes, cold and simmering. He turned and faced Alistair.

"But you know…if ol' Slothy were to have an accident—perhaps get slain by a powerful hero he had tried to imprison—his realm would be free game." Belial began to pace around slowly and deliberately. "I can sense power in you, mortal. I know what you are. I know what you can do."

"What do you mean?"

Belial turned and looked Alistair dead in the eyes.

"I know that you are a Templar; a hunter of mages and slayer of demons. I know that you are a Warden; one of the famous warriors who are empowered by the blood of what you call Darkspawn. I know that you have the blood of kings in you, if somewhat…diluted."

Alistair tried not to show the surprise on his face, but he found himself gripping the pommel of his sword a little tighter. How did Belial know that he was the illegitimate prince of Fereldan? Could he read minds? Could his apparent scatter-mindedness—his easily-distracted disposition—all be a clever ruse; a mask to hide the mind of a demonic master of guile and deception?

"I also know that your friend, the Warden, will need your help if she wants to defeat the Sloth demon." Belial persisted. "And, I happen to know which of these paths you should take if you want to make it back to her before the Sloth demon rips her head off."

He turned suddenly around, and started fiddling with something behind him. Alistair craned his neck to get a better view, and saw that Belial was rummaging through a rather large rectangular chest that had been hidden right behind him the entire time. It had floral patterns carved into the lid, as well as a poster taped below the keyhole (which was shaped like a heart) that displayed a slightly demonic-looking kitten perilously dangling from a branch over a swirling vortex of flames which ultimately lead to a pit of spikes and poisonous snakes. The caption below read 'Hang in there. Or else.'

Alistair decided that Belial probably wasn't a 'demonic master of guile and deception.'

"Ah ha!" the Demon Lord gasped, apparently finding what he was looking for. He then drug out of his chest a series of strange artifacts; a large black rectangle with a long cord coming out of its back end and a surface as smooth and reflective as crystal, a strange white box, and a wad of gray cords and strings of varying widths. The last thing he pulled out was a chair, which he then sat in after placing all the other strange and alien artifacts on the chest like it was a table.

"In addition to all that other stuff I know, I also know that it's been a long time—probably a two or three centuries— since I've just sat down, relaxed, and had some fun." Belial started up again as he unraveled an oddly shaped device that was covered in multicolored buttons. In the center of it there was a silver circle with a green 'X' on it. He pressed his thumb against it, and it began to glow. The white box and the black rectangle did the same, all coming to life.

"Sorcery." Alistair mumbled under his breath, his eyes wide. It never ceased to amaze him. It was deadly, but it could also be beautiful.

"It''s been nothing but work work work lately, and quite frankly I'm sick of it. So I think I'm entitled to a little break." Belial continued. "There's a new Elder Scrolls game out, you know?" He looked at Alistair as if he very well should know. "It's called Skyrim. I just bought it yesterday, but I haven't had the time to play it yet. However, I think I can find the time for it right about now. You just have to promise me that you won't sneak off down the third path to the left while I'm busy playing it. Wait until my break is over, and then me and you can finish our business. You comprehend, don't you mortal?"

Alistair grinned, finally understanding what the Demon Lord was getting at. "Oh of course. I'll wait right here for you until you finish your, err, game. You have my word."

"Good." Said the demon, whose attention was now firmly being held by the glowing black rectangle. Images of another world were displayed on its smooth crystalline surface, and now sounds were coming out of the thing as well. The white box hummed quietly, a green-yellow "X" glowing on it just like the device Belial held in his hands. Beautiful, thought Alistair again. Something about it just seemed…right.

"I'm glad we have an understanding. The other demons would torment me relentlessly if I allowed a mortal to kill my neighbor. But if I'm on break and therefore don't know anything about it…well, what can be done?"

"Of course." Alistair agreed, edging slowly toward the third path on the left.

"There is just one thing I must mention before I create my Orc warrior and begin a draconian genocide in the good ol' land of Skyrim." Belial warned, still not turning away from the mystical apparatus. "And that is this; you will be pursued. I don't know how long you'll have before it happens, but it will happen; no doubt about that. They will come for you. They will try to kill you. Consume you. Devour you."

"Who?" Alistair asked hesitantly. Belial tore his fiery eyes away from the screen, turned, and looked at him. It only lasted a second, but it made his heart skip a beat.

"The Nightmares." The Demon Lord hissed, almost in a whisper. "Your nightmares. The things that make your blood turn cold, that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, that make your legs turn to jelly. The closer you get to escaping, the stronger they will become. They will hunt you down and they will swallow you up. They will drag you down to Nightmare Keep where your greatest fears will torment you for all eternity. It is inevitable. Unless…"

"Unless what?" Alistair insisted, gulping.

"Unless you find some assistance. Out there. In the Realm of Dreams." The demon's attention was now firmly on the screen again. "There are many lost souls out there, Alistair. Dreamers, spirits of the dead and dying, wayward magi. They are in peril. They are lost in a dream. As are you. If you can help them, if you can take upon yourself their burdens and have them take up yours, if you can share the weight that one cannot bear and carry each other the distance that neither of you can walk alone, then there is a small chance that you will make it out of the Realm of Dreams alive. Their companionship might be the only thing that stands between you and an eternity of nightmares. You have been warned mortal. Now be gone so that I might get back to my…err, important business." Belial finished, and began cycling through different facial hair options for his Orc warrior.

"Thank you for your help, Belial." Alistair said graciously, and he turned toward what he hoped was the path back home.

"Oh, and just one other thing." Said Belial suddenly. Alistair turned back.

"Yes?"

"I was just curious…"

"Uh huh?"

"If it weren't too much trouble, I was hoping…well, I mean I was wondering if I might, well, you know, maybe…devour your soul?" He was looking sheepish again.

"I'd prefer to keep my soul un-devoured, if that's all right with you, Belial." Alistair said sternly.

"Oh." Said Belial, looking disappointed. "You sure?"

"It's just that…well, you know, I've grown rather attached to it." Alistair insisted, feeling almost selfish.

"Fair enough. Fair enough. I understand completely." Belial sighed. "Well…err, good luck on your quest, I suppose."

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. Good luck with your…err…Orc warrior, Belial."

"Thank you." Said Belial, sounding genuinely pleased, and then went back to his game.

And with that Alistair turned and began his journey down the third path to the left, into the mysterious, unknown reaches of the Realm of Dreams.


	2. Chapter 2: A Necessary Alliance

**Chapter Two: A Necessary Alliance**

The sounds of Belial enthusiastically playing Skyrim had just faded into the background when Alistair suddenly realized that he was not on the earthen pathway anymore. Instead, he was in the middle of an otherworldly forest, surrounded on all sides by gnarled, ancient-looking trees and a thick layer of fog.

He spun around to see if he could catch a glimpse of something—a trail of footprints, maybe, or a landmark he remembered passing—anything that might give him some idea where he was. But there was nothing. No familiar floating paths of stone. No crossroads. No absent-minded demon playing video games. Just the unfamiliar forest.

Alistair cursed under his breath, rubbing his temples and tightly shutting his eyes. He found the volatile and inconsistent geography of the Fade to be deeply unsettling. It gave him a headache.

He sighed after a moment, evidently deciding that there wasn't much he could do about it except keep on walking. After all, Belial had warned him about the unpredictable terrain in his lengthy introductory monologue, so it wasn't like it was much of a surprise.

Besides, he could whine all day about the fact that he had no idea where he was or how he had got there, but it really wasn't going to be any fun without the Warden around to banter with, or at least Morrigan to annoy.

No, there was no point in complaining. All that he could do now was stand tall and press forward.

The only problem was, Alistair no longer had any idea which way forward was—there wasn't really any trail through the veritable maze of foliage, and he could no longer distinguish which way he had come from.

After more exasperated temple-rubbing and a few minutes of painful forethought—in which he tried to determine his location by building a compass out of tree bark and a loose piece of knee armor (It didn't work for obvious reasons), making out the position of the sun in the sky (and then realizing that he couldn't even see the sky through all the fog and mist), and finally by spending half an hour trying to remember which side of trees moss grew on (and then realizing that knowing which way north was wouldn't actually help him because he didn't know which direction he wanted to go)—Alistair saw a little ball of light flying through the air and decided that he was going to follow it and see where it went.

It seemed like as good a method of navigation as any. I mean, it wasn't like he could really get any _more_ lost; he already had no idea where he was. What could possibly go wrong?

Besides, he usually just followed the Warden everywhere. Following felt right; it was comforting and reminded him of home.

And so Alistair trailed after the little glowing light into the depths of the forest; between trees, over colossal twisted roots, and into the ethereal mist.

It was then that the Nightmares came.

First he heard the noises; the low, throaty growl, almost like somebody choking on a chicken bone, followed by the sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs.

He paused, suddenly wary; those noises were hauntingly familiar.

He sniffed the air. It had a stench to it; death and decay, tinged with fresh blood and with a hint of the dank odor of a freshly dug grave.

It was a stench that he knew all too well.

_No…no, it couldn't be. _Alistair thought, his grip tightening on the pommel of his sword. He began to spin slowly, frantically looking all around him, searching the underbrush and the shadows all around him for movement and secretly hoping he wouldn't find any.

The little glowing orb landed daintily on the face of a tree in front of him, oblivious to the sudden rise of tension in the air. _I would have sensed them. _Alistair tried to assure himself, letting down his guard slightly. _I would have felt them coming before they got so—_

The first arrow came whistling from somewhere in the shadow of the underbrush, a black streak through the mist that glanced off Alistair's right shoulderguard. The second arrow just missed his head; it hit the little ball of light dead in the center and buried its tip deep into the trunk of the tree.

The shaft was black as night, rough hewn, fletched with the feathers of a crow, and bound hastily with crude string.

It was Darkspawn make.

Alistair ran. He exploded through the bushes as three more arrows buried themselves in the bark of the tree behind him.

_Darkspawn! _He cursed as he tore through the forest—weaving through the trees for cover, leaping over gnarled roots, ducking under low hanging branches—with all the speed that a man wearing a full set of scale mail armor could muster. Arrows split the air all around him, shrieking up from the undergrowth and down from the canopy.

_How'd they get here? How'd they get so close without me sensing them? _Two arrows hit the shield strapped to his back, the first bouncing off harmlessly and the second ricocheting upward and scratching the back of his neck.

Alistair reflexively threw his hand over the stinging wound. When he withdrew it, his gauntlet was stained red with blood.

He didn't slow down, which was good because neither did the bloodthirsty Darkspawn that were right at his heels.

And so the chase drug on.

it wasn't long before something became apparent to Alistair, as the stench became more and more overpowering, and the sounds of the choking growls and the thundering footsteps smashing through the thick vegetation became louder and louder.

_I can't keep this up, _he realized as his feet grew heavier and his breathing grew shallower. Already he was soaked in sweat, his heart was pounding, his flesh was stinging from a dozen places where an arrow had struck him and glanced off his armor.

It was only a matter of time before the heavily-armored Alistair would tire out, and then the Darkspawn would have him.

_I've got to find some way to end this. I've got to—_

Three Darkspawn leapt out of the underbrush in front of him, two dwarfish Genlocks with their bows drawn and an arrow notched and a tall Hurlock wielding an enormous claymore with a heavily notched and serrated blade.

It was too late to change direction; the Genlocks would put an arrow in the back of his skull before he made it more than a couple of feet. Without thinking, Alistair ran right at them, pulling his shield off his back and his sword out of its sheath as he went.

The first Genlock released his arrow. Alistair brought his shield up just in time to catch it before it hit him square in the chest.

Then in three quick steps, he was on them.

The Hurlock hefted up his mighty claymore and swung it with enough force to split a stone down the middle, aiming the blow right for the grey warden's neck.

Alistair ducked, still charging at the Darkspawn. The blow missed, swooshing through the space that Alistair's throat had occupied a moment before. He felt the sudden rush of air above his head; it mussed his hair.

Alistair aimed his sword point ahead of him right as he collided with the Hurlock, effectively skewering him right through the gut.

Next, never losing his momentum, he ripped the sword out of the Hurlock's abdomen and decapitated the second Genlock in one swift fluid motion.

He then propelled himself forward, smashing the remaining Genlock in the face with his shield and knocking it backward a full six feet into a tree where it lay, motionless.

_It's like these Darkspawn don't know me at all, _thought Alistair, suddenly grinning. He sheathed his sword and tossed his shield over his back as he ran, abruptly filled with renewed vigor. _They really thought that a crude three-man ambush would slow me down? I've killed loads of Darkspawn! I mean, I've even destroyed demons! I've smote armies of the undead! I've butchered bandits, exterminated giant spiders, defeated werewolves, and even slain dragons!_

Though Alistair's body was still running for his life, in his mind he suddenly saw things differently; instead of fleeing from the Darkspawn like a prepubescent girl flees from a beetle, he believed he was heroically charging in the opposite direction as part of a wise and cunning tactical withdrawal. He was off now, off in his own little world where he was a big-time hero—the savior of all of Fereldan, feared and beloved by all—and the Warden was his side-kick.

_They thought they could take me out? Me?!_ The _Mighty Templar! The Last of the Grey Wardens! The Bastard Prince of Fereldan! Defender of the world from the forces of evil, bane of the Archdemon, and worst enemy of swooping witch-thief's! Me, Adventurer Extraordinaire! Me, the greatest—_

But before Alistair could move on to the part about his prowess as a lover and his roguish good looks, he was interrupted. There was the twang of a bow string, the swish of an arrow streaking through the fog, a thwack, and then a jarring pain that started at his knee and then shot through the rest of his leg as he ran.

The injured Hurlock that lay on the ground a couple of hundred feet back dropped the bow he had picked up off the dead Genlock, laughed with a sound like someone who was being savagely strangled as black blood dripped out of his mouth and down his chin, and then died.

The moment the arrow hit Alistair his leg gave out and he fell, rolling, to the ground in a big heap of flesh and armor.

His heart and lungs felt like they might explode, his armor was heavy and cumbersome, and he was exhausted. In addition to all that, there was an arrow sticking out of his knee, and it hurt like hell. However, Alistair knew that he couldn't waste a moment lying on the ground.

They were coming for him still, full speed, weapons raised. It wouldn't take long for them to catch up; when Darkspawn attack, they do so with all the single-mindedness and fury of a colony of ants. They do not stop. They do not give up until their prey was dead, or worse; captured and dragged underground.

Spurred by a confusing mixture of fear and adrenaline, Alistair pushed himself back up using his hands. He stood uneasily for a moment, testing the strength of his injured knee and trying to ignore the searing pain that shot through his entire leg every time he put any pressure on it. He took a few experimental steps forward, shaking unsteadily a little as we walked.

A black arrow landed in the root of a nearby tree with a thud, and Alistair took that as a sign to pick up the pace a little. He tried to break out into a jog, then a run, but the pain soon became too much to bear and he came crashing to the ground again.

His leg just simply couldn't support his weight.

_This is it. _Alistair thought desperately as he heard the sounds of the Darkspawn grow louder and louder. Their footfalls were like thunder now. _This is where they catch me. This is where I fall. But I won't go down without a fight! _

With the last bit of his strength, Alistair crawled up to a massive free-standing tree, pulling his shield of his back and unsheathing his sword once again. He sat with his back to the tree, put the shield in front of him, and held the sword readily in his free arm.

He could see them now. They came, big, dark, hulking, ugly shapes, lurching out of the undergrowth and dropping out of the branches. They stopped running when they saw him, propped up against a tree. There was no point anymore. He wasn't going anywhere.

Slowly they surrounded him, weapons raised and readied. There must have been a dozen of them, maybe more. They taunted him, waving their swords in the air, hammering their shields with the pommel of their weapons, and growling at him, but they didn't move in for the kill. Not yet. They seemed almost to be…waiting for something.

"Well! What are you waiting for?!" Alistair shouted furiously at the encircling Darkspawn. "Come, meet my blade! Just try and take me, you cowards! Have at me! I dare you! I'll send you all running home, crying for your grotesque little Darkspawn mummies! I—oh my…"

It came stomping out of the mist, the thing that they had been waiting for. It was an Alpha, their leader, taller and wider than the rest of the Darkspawn, dressed in full battle armor, wearing the traditional horned helmet, and wielding a bastard sword in one hand and a battle axe in the other.

Alistair had been a Grey Warden for years and still the Alphas made his skin crawl. It wasn't the fact that they were the leaders of the Darkspawn horde or the fact that they were faster and stronger than their brethren, and therefore more deadly in combat.

It was their eyes.

In their eyes, besides a deep-rooted hatred of mankind and general malice for all living things, could be seen a frightening level of intelligence, of understanding. While the rest of the Darkspawn seemed like little more than wild animals whose cruelty and violence could be explained as natural animal instinct, the Alphas seemed to fully comprehend the despicableness, the _horridness_ of their actions, and yet they chose to be wicked and violent anyway. They knew they were evil, but they didn't care. They just wanted to watch the world burn.

The Alpha approached Alistair, who raised weapon in defense. "Take one more step and you lose a leg!" Alistair warned, steadying his trembling blade. The Alpha ignored him.

Alistair swung, aiming right for the Alpha's knee to return the favor. The Darkspawn lazily blocked his blow, catching the blade with his axe and rending it out of Alistair's hand.

"Well I can still smack you around a little with this thing." Alistair warned as he raised his shield up threateningly. The Alpha casually smacked it out of his grip, sending it flying in the opposite direction of Alistair's sword.

Alistair sighed.

"Okay. Fine. You asked for it." He raised his hands into a guard, still sitting on the ground with his back against the tree. "Fisticuffs. You and me, buddy. Right here, right now. Let's go."

The Alpha bent down so its face was even with Alistair's. Alistair took a swing at it, which the creature easily sidestepped. It then grabbed Alistair by his outthrust arm and hefted him in the air, holding him so close that their faces where almost touching.

"Mee…Win." The beast spat in Alistair's face in a voice like Death's himself, grinning madly.

"Okay, you asked for this, friend." Said Alistair, a talker to the very end. "If you don't put me down this instant, I'll be forced to…er…use my…my special _mind magic _on you. This is my last warning. Now you just be a good little Darkspawn and scamper off back to your ho—"

The Alpha grabbed Alistair by the throat, effectively shutting him up for what was probably the first time in his life.

"Mee…Kill…Hyooman." The monster laughed. And then, still laughing, he squeezed, slowly crushing Alistair's throat and closing off his airway.

Alistair gasped. He clawed with both hands at the Alphas grip, but it was as unrelenting as steel. He kicked and punched blindly, but it was like striking a stone wall.

His vision began to fade. The lights and shadows began to swirl before his eyes. _This is it. _Alistair's brain thought right before total shutdown._ This is end. I wonder what happens to a person if they die in the Fade? Oh well…I suppose I'm about to find out..._

Shadows were overtaking him; the shade of the trees and the silhouette of the Darkspawn were encroaching on the edge of his vision.

It was the shadow behind the murderous Alpha that held Alistair's attention, though. It moved different than the rest. It seemed more solid all of a sudden. Like…Like…

The world was slipping out of focus. Everything was going blurry. All that was real was the pain in his throat and the laughing of the Alpha as it choked the life out of him.

Somewhere, in the misty foggy grayness, a light flashed twice. It was brilliant and beautiful, like the sun shining on a naked blade.

The laughter suddenly stopped. The grip released. Alistair vaguely felt himself land on the ground with a thud.

The Alpha was standing above him, but there was something different about him now. The look on his face had changed; no longer was it a look of intelligence, malice, and triumph over an enemy, but rather a look of bewildered confusion.

Also, he didn't have any arms.

The Alpha roared in agonizing pain and then keeled over, dead.

Behind him stood a man dressed all in black. He crouched, ready for combat, a sword covered in black Darkspawn blood in each hand, and a strange mask on his face; it was adorned in a style completely foreign to Alistair, all blue and white, with a crazed smile and slanted eyes that were dark as night but still filled those who looked upon them with the eerie feeling that they were looking back.

Then the world came rushing back into clarity as oxygen refilled Alistair's lungs.

Suddenly, the rest of the Darkspawn—upon noticing their slain leader—rushed at the masked stranger with roars of fury. The stranger engaged them, never making a sound; within seconds he had run through a Hurlock who had tried to decapitate him with a greataxe and cut down two little Genlocks who had charged him with shortswords.

_He moves with more grace than Leliana_, Alistair realized in awe as the stranger danced around the assorted Darkspawn, dodging their blows and using their own weight to send them hurtling to the ground.

_And he strikes with more precision than an Antivan Crow_, Alistair added as the stranger simultaneously cut the heads of two Darkspawn after running up the face of a nearby tree, doing a backflip, and popping up behind them. _Zevran could never have pulled something like that off._

Alistair pulled his attention away from the impressive stranger. _My weapons._ He remembered. _I've got to find my sword and my shield._

By the time Alistair had located his shield, which was lying beside one of the Alpha's severed arms, half of the Darkspawn were already dead and a third were missing limbs yet still insisted on fighting anyways.

By the time Alistair had crawled over to his sword, which was stuck in a tree root, and managed to dislodge it, the battle was already over. All of the Darkspawn were either dead, mortally wounded, or missing too many body parts to be any real threat.

The masked man stood there, weapons at the ready, until the last Darkspawn's corpse hit the ground. Then, chest heaving slightly, he sheathed his weapons and began to walk away.

"Hey!" Alistair called. "Hey, wait a minute!" He began to limp slowly in the direction of the stranger.

The stranger paused, and Alistair managed to catch up.

"You…you saved my life back there." Alistair managed to gasp out, still rather short on breath. Being choked out will do that to a man.

"Yes." Said the stranger, his voice quiet, stoic, almost like a whisper.

He began to walk again.

"Why?" Alistair asked, lumbering after him. He remembered Belial's warning about the dangers of the Realm of Dreams, and how his only chance would probably be to team up with a kindred spirit, another lost soul. Crazy as the Demon Lord was, Alistair saw the wisdom in this advice, especially now that he could barely walk. 

"Why not?" The stranger answered, evidently not one for wasting words.

"Because you might have died?" Alistair offered. The stranger shrugged.

"Well thanks for it anyway. I was in a _bit_ of a tight spot. Things might have gotten a bit hairy if you hadn't come along. Oh, my name's Alistair by the way." Alistair added, as if an afterthought, and he extended a hand for the man to shake. "And you are?"

The stranger just looked at it, dumbfounded. Then he sighed. "Listen, _Alistair_; I walk alone. I like it that way. I saved your life, so now you can head your way. And I'll head mine." He resumed walking, this time at a faster pace.

"I could travel with you." Alistair suggested. "The journey would be safer with two. You know, I could watch your back and you could watch mine?"

The stranger turned and looked at the black arrow shaft sticking out of Alistair's knee. Then he turned back.

"You'd just slow me down."

"Awe, come on. I can keep up with you, and besides wouldn't it be nice to have some company? You know, somebody to talk to on the long, boring—"

The stranger stopped suddenly, his muscles tensing. He turned to Alistair and put a finger to the lips of his mask. The gesture was lost on Alistair.

"What? Do you hear something, or—?"

All of a sudden the stranger was surrounded. They leapt from the trees, swords drawn.

There were three of them, and they were all _him_. They wore the same black outfit and the same blue and white mask with the disturbing grin and the eerie eyes, and they held the same dual swords in each of their hands.

"By Andraste's Holy Knickers! There are four of you!" Alistair commented, befuddled.

They all attacked Alistair's enigmatic savior at once, slicing and dicing at various parts of his body. He leaped out of their reach, grabbing onto a low-hanging tree branch, hefting himself up, and leaping up the tree as his doppelgangers followed him.

"Hold on, pal! I'm coming!" Alistair shouted after him, and he began the slow process of limping toward the tree. _Maybe if I can help him out, he'll see that I can be a valuable team member. _He thought, wincing in pain with every other step he took. _Either way, I probably owe him for saving my life._

In the canopy above, the chase had turned into a game of cat and mouse, except there were three cats, and all of them, mouse included, had dual swords. So, err, not really all that much like a game of cat and mouse at all, I suppose.

The mysterious stranger was doing his best to evade the three newcomers, weaving through the branches and climbing higher when they got close to surrounding him. His doppelgangers chased after him relentlessly, a flurry of swords, flying bark, and falling leaves as they did their best to sink their blades into his flesh.

Around this time, Alistair finally made it to the tree. He looked up at the massive thing, then down to his wounded leg. "Don't worry!" He called up to the stranger, undeterred. "I'm coming to save you!" He threw his good leg over the first branch, and started trying to pull the rest of his body up onto it.

The stranger had made it all the way to the top of the tree when one of the doppelgangers got a lucky strike. Their sword cut straight through the branch he was perched on, sending him plummeting suddenly to the ground.

The stranger made a desperate grab for another branch, but instead ended up clutching one of the doppelganger's ankles, dragging them down with him. He positioned himself on top so that his evil double would hit the ground first.

The doppelganger smacked into the earth with a grotesque thud, followed by a grunt of pain as the strangers left arm—which had ended up tangled tightly around his sinister twin's waist—broke like glass.

Alistair, who had just managed to fully pull his body onto the first branch, sighed and began to struggle his way back down again. "Just hold on! I'll get there eventually!"

The remaining two doppelgangers beat him to it. They leapt like cats (but, again, with dual swords) from their respective branches, landing on either side of the stranger as he struggled to his feet and fumbled for his sword with his good arm.

They drew their blades and began a furious onslaught of hacking, slashing, and jabbing.

The stranger blocked and dodged, refusing to give up no matter how grim things got. He met them blow for blow, but he was outnumbered four blades to one.

Then one of the doppelgangers landed a slash across the stranger's chest. The stranger turned to face him, and the other doppelganger kicked him in the back of the leg and grabbed him by his shoulders, forcing him to his knees.

The first doppelganger kicked his sword out of his hand. Then, gently, he put his hands over the strangers mask and tore it off his face while the second doppelganger restrained him. The stranger struggled with all his might, but he was unable to get free.

After all, his doppelgangers were just as strong as he was.

Finally, the first of his wicked lookalikes raised his sword, ready to strike the finishing blow.

The stranger looked up into the masks cold, black eyes, ready to defy death until the very last moment.

_Bonk_. Alistair's shield came soaring through the air like a Frisbee, smacking the second doppelganger in the head. He loosened his grip on the stranger, and that was all the edge he needed.

The stranger grabbed his captor's wrist with his good arm, reversed the hold, and swung himself behind him right as the first doppelgangers sword came crashing down.

There was a nasty _thwack_ as the second doppelgangers' skull was split in twain.

The last remaining lookalike swiftly yanked the blade out of his dead partner's skull, unceremoniously tossed him aside, and reared back for another strike.

A sword burst through his stomach, shocking both him and the stranger who was looking up at him from the ground. The blade was withdrawn, and the final doppelganger grasped at the hole in his chest as he fell over, convulsed a few times, and finally died.

From behind him emerged Alistair, standing heroically (if rather unsteadily) with his sword drawn and covered in red blood.

"I told you…I would get here…eventually." He said breathlessly, offering a hand to the unmasked stranger. This time he took it. Alistair hefted him up.

The two stood, face to face; for the first time, Alistair realized.

The stranger was not what he had expected.

He was _young_. Just a teenager really, with thick and shaggy raven-colored hair that hung in his face, a strong pointed chin, and hazel eyes, the left of which was surrounded by a large disfiguring scar that reached all the way from his ear to the bridge of his nose and ran all the way down to his cheek from his hairline.

There was a pause for a minute. Then the stranger finally spoke.

"Zuko." He said.

"What?" Alistair asked.

"My name. It's Zuko."

Zuko extended his good hand the way he had seen Alistair do earlier. Alistair smiled, and shook it vigorously.

"And I'm Alistair, as I told you earlier. You know, before your, err, clones attacked." Zuko withdrew his hand, turned, and began walking once more. Alistair followed. "Well, Zuko, have you reconsidered my offer?" He asked, suddenly in a much better mood now that nobody was trying to kill him.

"I don't think—" Zuko started, but Alistair cut him off.

"Look, we both know we can't do this alone." He said, suddenly taking a logical approach. "I took an arrow to the knee; there's no way I'll be able to outrun those creatures if they come back. And _you_, Zuko…your arm is done for. For a month, at least, maybe longer. And we both know that you can't fight without it; you may be a master with those dual swords, but with only one blade your attack power is cut in half."

"Your point?"

"We _need_ each other. You can be my legs, I can be your arms." Alistair finished, crossing his arms. "It's a necessary alliance."

Zuko paused, apparently considering this.

Then, after a moment he said "Fine." And he resumed walking.

"Fine?" Alistair asked, making sure he heard right. He increased his pace and caught up to Zuko.

"Fine." Zuko repeated, not turning back. "You're right. We're going to need to stick together if we want to survive all the dangers of the Spirit World."

"Spirit World?" Alistair asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Yes." Responded Zuko coolly. "That's where we are. What, did you not know?"

"Where I'm from, we call this realm the Fade." Alistair said, feeling ignorant. Zuko looked at him, a curious expression on his face.

"Which of the four kingdoms are you from?"

"Four kingdoms? Err…I'm from Fereldan…" Zuko gave him a blank look. "It's, uh, east of Orlais, south of Antiva?"

"I've never heard of any of those places…"

"Well, I'll tell you all about them on our way to…err…where _are_ we going in such a hurry?"

There was a short pause.

"I don't know a lot about the Spirit World." Said Zuko finally, after a while of walking in silence. "What I do know, I learned from my uncle. Once, when I was younger, he told me a story about a spirit; a spirit so ancient that only the spirits of the moon and ocean were older. He said that the spirit had become very wise in its old age. I figure that if there's anybody who knows of a way out of here, then it's that spirit."

"You really think you can find this spirit in this enormous misty jungle?"

"Yes. He lives in a tree in the center of the forest."  
Another pause.

"Does this spirit have a name?" Alistair asked with a giggle, remembering Belial the Demon Lord of Long-Winded Introductory Exposition and Casual Soul Devouring and wondering whether spirits followed similarly ridiculous rules for namesakes and titles.

"Yes." Answered Zuko. "His name is Koh. Koh the Face-Stealer."


	3. Chapter 3: The Face-Stealer's Lair

**Chapter Three: The Face-Stealer's Lair**

"So let me get this straight," remarked Alistair as he chopped his way through the dense undergrowth using his long sword like a machete. "Basically, what you're telling me is that you can magically shoot fire out of your hands?"

"It's not as simple as that." Zuko insisted with a sigh. He followed behind Alistair, keeping an ear to the forest to make sure they were not being followed. "Like I told you earlier, being a Firebender isn't just about 'shooting fire out your hands.' Uncle always used to tell me that Firebending is all about manipulating energy. It's about using your Chi—" He noticed the blank look on Alistair's face.

"Chi: the invisible energy that is inside you and inside all living things. Anyways, you use your Chi to interact with the energy that flows naturally through the air. As a Firebender, I can take this naturally occurring energy and transform it into heat, or fire, which I can then control by changing the ebb and flow of Chi through my body. Understand?"

Alistair blinked.

"So basically what you're saying is you can magically shoot fire out of your hands?"

"Pretty much." Zuko conceded, rolling his eyes. Things had been going on like this for a while now; the awkward man who called himself Alistair talked and talked as he lead the way to the center of the jungle in search of Koh, haphazardly hacking away at the branches and vines as he went, while Zuko himself trudged quietly behind, answering Alistair's endless questions as curtly as he could and trying to say as little as possible.

The never-ending interrogation had started an hour or so ago when Alistair had asked him how he had ended up trapped in the Spirit World (or 'Fade' as he insisted on calling it). It had quickly gone downhill from there.

He had told him. The truth, even. Well, mostly.

His name was Zuko, and he had no idea how he had ended up in the Spirit World. This much was completely true, truer than he had initially intended. He had forgotten to use a fake name when he originally introduced himself, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

Then the half-truths started sneaking their way into the story.

He was nobody, he had claimed. Simply a refugee fleeing from the War; one of millions who had come to Ba Sing Se looking for a better life.

He conveniently left out the part about him being the banished prince of the Fire Nation.

He went on to say that he had fled with his uncle. The two of them had worked in a tea shop in the city. That was the last place he remembered being before he suddenly felt sick and passed out.

When he woke up again, it was in the Spirit World, surrounded by sinister doppelgangers of himself, who attacked him. He killed them, took their clothing and their weapons, and set off to find Koh the Face-Stealer, who he hoped would be able to give him answers.

Instead, he ended up inadvertently bumping into Alistair, and the rest was history. Or, perhaps, it was the Present. Or…oh, never mind.

Either way, Zuko now immensely regretted telling Alistair all this; it had opened the floodgates to a boundless ocean of inane questions.

The next thing he knew, he was trying to explain to the obviously crazed and deluded Alistair what the Four Kingdoms were, _where_ they were, what 'bending' was, how it was done, what an 'Avatar' was, and so forth.

Soon Zuko had a migraine. There were some things you never thought you would have to describe to somebody; like what a smell was, or what color looked like, or what the theoretical difference between a cheese wheel and the philosophical concept of antidisestablishmentarianism was.

_It's like he doesn't know anything about anything. _Zuko thought, reflecting on Alistair's recent failure to understand the basics of Firebending. _I mean, it's like he grew up in another world! To not even know what a Firebender is, or Ba Sing Se, or the Avatar, he'd have to be—_

"So you're basically like a mage, right?" Alistair asked suddenly as he carelessly hacked away at a particularly stubborn vine, pulling Zuko out of his thoughts.

"What'd you call me?" demanded Zuko, scowling at the unknown word. In his experience, unknown words had a tendency to be insulting.

"A mage? A person who can do magic?"

"I told you, Firebending is _not_ magic." Zuko said with a tinge of annoyance.

"If you insist." Alistair shrugged, and then, under his breath, added "Sounds a lot like magic to me, but what do I know; I'm just a professional hunter of rogue mages..."  
"What was that?" Demanded Zuko, who had rather sharp ears.

"Oh, nothing." Asserted Alistair. "I was just wondering…if you would show me some of your totally amazing and completely non-magical Firebending. You know, give me a sample?"

All of a sudden Zuko looked relatively shy.

"I…uh…I can't." He said, sounding rather uncomfortable.

"What? Why not?" Alistair asked with a sly grin. He enjoyed watching the stoic and reserved Zuko get his feathers ruffled up. "Is your Chi malfunctioning or something?"

"No!" Zuko snapped, clenching his fists. "Bending just doesn't _work_ in the Spirit World. I don't know why; it just doesn't."

"It doesn't?" Alistair asked with disbelief as he absentmindedly decapitated the local flora. Then he laughed. "Well, in that case, back in the real world I had the ability to fly and shoot lasers out of my backside!"

"You don't have to believe me." Zuko said indignantly, his face turning red with either embarrassment or mounting rage; probably the latter.

"Oh, come on now. I was just kidding." Alistair insisted, still grinning. "At least that explains why you didn't incinerate those…those, uh…" He paused for a second, turning to Zuko. "What exactly were those things that attacked you? The one's in the masks. The, uh…other _you's_?"

There was a short pause. Like most short pauses, it was rather unnecessary and really only existed to heighten the fleeting sense of drama. Finally, Zuko spoke.

"Uncle used to say that in the Spirit World people meet their real selves." He started, brushing a handful of raven-colored hair out of his good eye. "He said that our souls—the things within us that are truly _us_, that makes us more than just animals—come from there. They exist both in the Spirit World and within our own bodies, but they only truly manifest themselves in the Spirit World. Therefore, uncle said, the Darkness within us—the evil, the fear, the hate, the rage, and all the black charred bits of our heart—also manifests in the Spirit World. It takes different shapes, different forms for every individual, and all it want is to corrupt your soul; to tear it to tatters and leave you with nothing; empty and hollow." Zuko closed his eyes, as if deep in thought.

"I suppose that's what they were. They were the shadows within my own heart manifested; fear and hatred given substance by the Spirit World."

"They're your Nightmares…" Alistair gasped, with sudden realization.

"Huh?"

"The other you's. They're _your_ Nightmares!"

"What makes you say that?" Asked Zuko, looking completely lost.

"Well, when I magically appeared in the Fade, I met this Demon named Belial who explained to me, long story short, that I was going to be chased down and brutally murdered by my own Nightmares." Alistair explained matter-of-factly. "He then directed me down a gravity-defying earthen pathway that was suspended in midair and proceeded to play what he called a 'video game' using a magical box that glowed and showed pictures and sounds from another world."

Zuko stared at him like he had just morphed into a giant talking platypus-bear wearing a pink tutu and a Viking hat while balancing on a unicycle.

"But that's a story for another time." Alistair continued, wiping some sweat from his brow as he continued to whimsically slash his way through the otherworldly jungle. "The point is, the 'Nightmares' that Belial told me about and the, errr… 'Evil Soul Gremlins' your uncle told _you_ about seem rather similar…maybe they're the same thing? I dunno, what do you think?"

"Look, I don't know, alright?!" Zuko growled, running out of patience for Alistair's madness. "Maybe! I guess! Does it matter? Can't you stop asking pointless questions and spouting out nonsense and just focus on looking for Koh?"

Alistair fell silent.

There was another pause, this one longer and more awkward than the last. For a while the journey was silent, besides the treading of their feet and the thwack of sword on plant.

Then, suddenly, Alistair stopped.

"Err…hey, Zuko." He asked, breaking the silence.

"What?" Zuko demanded.

"I've got something important to tell you, but…it's probably going to sound a bit like nonsensical gibberish. Should I tell you anyway?" Zuko sighed.

"If you must."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Are you positive? Because if it's going to be a hassle, I suppose I can just—"

"Will you just spit it out already!"

"Were surrounded by faceless monkeys right now."

Zuko looked up at the tree tops, and discovered that Alistair spoke the truth.

Before them stood a huge, dead tree, and all over it and all over all the surrounding foliage were faceless monkeys.

They were everywhere; dangling from branches by their tales, hiding in the bushes, squatting on logs and scratching themselves, swinging from vines and smacking into each other. Dozens and dozens of monkeys, and not a single face between them.

One monkey sat all alone on one of the great tree's colossal roots. The poor thing was repetitively smashing a banana into its smooth blank face. If it had eyes, Alistair was sure it would be crying.

Not to his surprise, all over the ground there were little white bones; humanoid-looking, but too small to belong to a man.

"This must be the place." Zuko said shortly.

"What makes you say that?" Alistair asked.

Zuko looked at him.

"Kidding." Alistair insisted.

The two necessary allies circled the great tree until they came across a foreboding black hole in the side of the trunk. A wooden stairway that seemed to grow out of the tree itself disappeared into its shadowy depths.

"Well this looks inviting." Alistair commented, looking down at the murky abyss. "Right then. I suppose it's now or never. No use standing about waiting for Soul Gremlins to come get us, eh?" He took a step toward the tree, but Zuko stuck out his good arm and held him back.

"Before we go in, I have to warn you; you can't show any emotion on your face while talking to Koh. Don't smile. Don't frown. Don't blow him raspberry. Don't do _anything_. If you make any face at all, Koh will steal it."

"_What_?" Alistair demanded with mock surprise. "Koh the Face-Stealer…will steal my face? And he sounded like such a nice guy, too. I guess that just goes to show; you can't trust anybody these days."

"Look, if you're not going to take this seriously than maybe you should just stay out here and stand guard." Zuko grumbled, lowering his arm and taking stepping toward the gaping dark maw of the great tree. "I can do this by myself."

"Hold on!" Demanded Alistair, grabbing onto Zuko's shoulder. "You're just going to leave me out here? With all these…these _monkeys_?"

"Yeah." Responded Zuko, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I can feel them…watching me." Alistair said quietly, suddenly whispering conspiratorially as if he was worried the monkeys might hear. Zuko looked at him blankly.

"They don't have any eyes."

"Yeah, well, that's true, but…but what if you need my help or-or something? You're injured, remember?"

"I'm not here to fight Koh; I'm here to talk to him. But I'll yell if I need help, alright?" Zuko peeled Alistair's hand off his shoulder. "I'll be back soon. Keep an eye out for enemies."

And with that, Zuko vanished into the darkness.

Alistair turned his attention away from the entrance into Koh's realm and back toward the misty otherworldly jungle.

He tried to keep his eyes busy scanning the trees for any sign of Nightmares. He tried not to notice that now all of the monkeys were watching him; looking at him with their non-existent eyes and facing him with their nonexistent faces.

He did not succeed.

The hairs on the back of his neck standing up, Alistair struggled to take his mind off the monkeys by whistling a cheerful little tune, but it came out sounding forced and frantic.

_Andraste's holy knickers, I hope Zuko makes this quick!_

_ "_Zuko…" The voice came from somewhere in the darkness, and It was not Alistair's. Zuko spun around, certain that it had come from just over his shoulder.

There was nobody there. Just the empty stairwell. He turned back around—

And suddenly he was nose-to-nose with Koh the Face Stealer.

Zuko wasn't sure what he had been expecting when he had first heard Uncle tell him the story about Koh, but certainly not _this_.

He looked somewhat like a giant misshapen centipede that had eaten a man but only swallowed him up to his neck, leaving a rather creepy human face perpetually protruding disturbingly out of its mouth. The face he was wearing at the moment was paper white, with thin blood red lips that were pulled up in a smirk, tiny slits for eyes that had large blue circles painted around them, and small black dots for eyebrows.

"Welcome." Koh said in a voice that oozed malevolence. Zuko took a deep breath. _Remember: no emotions, no faces. Don't react to anything he says. Just stay calm._

"Thank you." He replied blandly, giving Koh a little bow. Manners were very important when dealing with a powerful ancient spirit, after all.

"I was wondering when you'd show up, Zuko. I was beginning to think you wouldn't make it."

"You know me?" Zuko asked dispassionately. _Keep a straight face, no matter what he says. _He reminded himself. _He's going to try and trick you, to shock you into a reaction. Don't fall for it._

"Of course I know you, Zuko. It's not every day that I get a visit from _royalty_." Koh sneered as he slowly slithered around Zuko like a boa constrictor contemplating a kill. "Yes, I know who you are: PrinceZuko, son of Firelord Ozai, and _former_ heir to the throne of the Fire Nation."

"If you know who I am, then you probably know why I have come." Said Zuko coldly, refusing to rise to the bait.

"Ah, yes. You want out." Koh stated, his face suddenly shifting into that of a madly grinning baboon.

"Do you know the way?" Zuko asked, doing his best to remain unresponsive as the baboon face leered at him in a deeply unsettling way.

"Of course." Koh responded, his face shifting again, this time to a man with a sharp black beard, a thick mustache, and a heavyset brow. He turned away from Zuko for the first time since the conversation had started, slipping back into the shadows. "But first, answer me this, young prince: why do you wish to leave?"

"What do you mean?" Asked Zuko blankly.

"Why do you wish to go back to the realm of mortals? What have you got to go back to?" Zuko could hear Koh writhing around in the darkness, but he no longer knew where he was. His voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. "Do you really want to go back to being a refugee, forever on the run from both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom? A penniless pauper who works in a tea shop? What reason have you to go back? Do you want to go back to living a lie, pretending like you're not _you_; ex-Prince Zuko, banished from the Fire Nation, sent to chase the Avatar forever? Zuko, _former_ heir to the throne, who has always lived in the shadow of your more talented sister,—"

"You're not going to get to me." Zuko insisted, but he felt the anger inside him growing.

"—scarred by your father in a hopelessly one-sided Agni Kai when you were but a boy of thirteen and then tossed aside as if you were a used bandage,—"

"Silence, spirit." Zuko ordered, covering both ears with his hands, trying to drown out Koh. But it was hopeless; the spirits voice just became louder and louder, until it boomed and resonated from every black unseen corner.

"—abandoned by your mother; the only one who cared for you, the one who sheltered you from you the cruelty of your sister, the malice of your father, from the all the pains and evils of this world."

"No…" Zuko mumbled weakly. "No…you're wrong."

"Where is she Zuko? She's gone. Do you know why? Do you know who is responsible for her disappearance, why she did what she did? Do you know who's to _blame_? Do you, _Prince_ Zuko of the Fire Natio—"

"Shut up!" Zuko exploded with fury, and realized his mistake too late. He heard the sound of Koh springing, lurching at him to steal the look of rage right off his face. He closed his eyes—

There was a short pause, though it might have become a tall pause if it had only eaten its vegetables and drank more milk.

Zuko opened one hesitant eye. Then the other.

Standing between him and Koh, chest outthrust, hands on his hips, legs shoulder width apart, and effectively blocking the Face-Stealer from living up to his name, was Alistair.

"Decided you might need my help down here after all." He said, taking special care not to allow his face to move even a muscle, which made his attempts at talking rather humorous to watch.

"Monkeys finally got to you, huh?" Zuko asked as he recomposed himself, feeling grateful for the first time since they'd met that for the man's company.

"You don't need eyes to stare at someone like you'd like to eat their faces off and then crudely stitch onto yours." He responded, a shiver running down his spine. "I know that now." Zuko almost smiled, but then remembered himself. He turned back to Koh, who was frowning profusely with his original bone-white face.

"You had your fun, Koh." He said, sounding emotionless once again. "Now tell us: how can we get out of the Spirit World?"

"Spoil sport." Koh sneered at Alistair, and then turned back toward Zuko. "Very well. I will tell you. There is only one way out of the Spirit World; an ancient and mysterious doorway. It lies far away from here, outside of the Spirit Jungle, in a Keep as old as time itself. If you travel with the sun at your backs and go through the Garden of the Dead, you'll reach it by nightfall."

"It's as simple as that?" Alistair asked, sounding rather surprised, though he took special care to make sure that his face did not show it. "Huh. I thought it be harder than that."

"Well, there _is_ one…complication." Koh said, grinning unpleasantly once again. "The door is locked. Sealed up tight with dark magic."

"How can we unlock it?" Zuko demanded. _I had a feeling this wouldn't be easy._

"By defeating the darkness within your own hearts. By slaying the shadows that threaten to envelope your soul. By being true to yourselves; the evil that wants to destroy you is nourished by the falsehoods you tell yourselves, that you tell each other. It feeds off your worries and thrives off your weaknesses. You have to face what you fear most, destroy the _source_ of your Nightmares. Only then will the door be open to you."

Everything was quiet for a moment. Then, Alistair broke the silence.

"I don't suppose you could take all the frills and poetry out of that and explain it to us again, except a little more straightforward and less riddle-like this time, could you?" Koh sighed.

"Go to Nightmare Keep. That is where you will find the doorway you seek. It is also where you will find the source of your Nightmares, which will take the shape of what you fear most. Slay them, and then the doorway will be open for you." He looked at Alistair disapprovingly. "Is that simple enough for you, human?"

"Yes, that makes it so much clearer." Alistair replied. "Thank you, Oh-Mighty-Face-Stealer, Sir."

"It was my pleasure." Koh said, frowning at Alistair and then turning away from the pair of them. "Now will both of you kindly _get out of my domain_?"

"Gladly." Said Alistair, who started taking slow, careful steps toward the stairs.

"Thank you." Said Zuko levelly, bowing slightly before he too turned and began his ascent back out of the Face-Stealer's lair.

"We will meet again, Your Highness!" Koh called up after them, and then he began to cackle madly to himself like he had just told a hilarious joke. Alistair and Zuko broke out into a sprint and didn't stop until they saw sunlight.

"Sweet Maker, am I glad to be out of there!" Alistair gasped out, both hands clutching his injured knee. The arrow had been removed, of course, and the wound had been dressed with some bandages and a health poultice, but it still burnt like fire when he put too much weight on it.

"Yeah. Me too." Zuko said quietly. Then, after a moment he added. "Look, about what happened back there—" He was turning red again, and this time Alistair was pretty sure it wasn't because of rage.

"Don't mention it." Alistair insisted, patting Zuko roughly on the back.

"Just…thanks, alright? If it weren't for you, I would have ended up just like one of these monk—"

Zuko fell silent.

Several of the monkeys were standing over four black human-sized lumps of cloth that were lying sprawled out on the forest floor. Four faceless monkeys stood out of the group in particular; probably because they were no longer faceless. They had found new faces, painted in blue and white with black slits for eyes, and strapped them on, and they were now staring with their heads cocked right at Alistair and Zuko.

"Looks like some Nightmares were planning on ambushing us after we left Koh's lair." Said Zuko quietly. One of the monkeys picked up a bloody sword and began to swing it around experimentally and with surprising skill for a presumably blind sub-human.

"Let's get the Hell out of here." Alistair suggested.

"Right behind you." Zuko agreed, and the two unlikely companions took off at full speed with the sun at their backs.


	4. Chapter 4: Cabbages and Kings

**Chapter Four: Cabbages and Kings**

"Zuko..."

"Yes?"

"I think we're lost."

The two necessary allies had been walking for what seemed like hours with their backs to the sun, and they still hadn't come across anything that remotely resembled a 'Garden of the Dead'. They had, however— after much slashing and chopping on Alistair's part—managed to make their way out of the Spirit Jungle. They were now walking in a much lighter and less foggy forest that reminded Alistair of the Korcari Wilds back in Fereldan.

"We followed Koh's directions exactly." Zuko pointed out, sounding slightly distracted. He had been like that ever since they had left the Face-Stealer's lair; sort of inattentive, unfocused, like his mind was on something else.

"I'm just saying I feel like we've been here before. I've seen that log with the frog on it before." Alistair responded, pointing a little ways ahead. Zuko stopped walking and followed Alistair's finger with his eyes.

"There are plenty of frogs and plenty of logs."

"Yeah, but _together_?"

"Inevitably—"

"And besides, it's the same frog on the same log." Alistair insisted passionately. "I can tell."

"How?" Demanded Zuko, raising the nonexistent eyebrow over his left eye.

"What, you don't think I can tell the difference between one frog on a log and another?"

"They all look the same to me."

"Well that shows how much you know about amphibians and lumber."

"What do you want from me, Alistair?" Zuko snapped, clenching his fists. "If we're lost, we're lost. There's nothing we can do about it except keep on walking in what we hope is the right direction. Standing here and arguing isn't getting us anywhere."

He started walking again.

"Maybe we could stop and ask for directions?" Alistair offered.

"Yeah? Who do you want to ask?" Zuko snorted, turning back to look at Alistair as he walked. "The frog?"

"We could. You never know; he might be a _magical talking frog_ or something. I mean, weirder things have happened here."

"Alistair—"

"I just want a sign of some kind. Something that lets us know that we are going the right way and not wandering off in a random direction toward yet another malevolent creature that wants to kill us, capture us, or steal one of our various body parts."

"Yeah well, don't get your hopes u—" THWACK. Zuko walked straight into a tall slender wooden pole that protruded straight out of the ground in the middle of a little clearing. He fell roughly backward onto the forest floor. "Argh! What the—"

"It's a signpost!" Alistair exclaimed excitedly, extending a hand and pulling a disgruntle Zuko out of the dirt. "What are the odds, eh?"

"Astronomical." Zuko grumbled, brushing himself off and flicking a leaf from his hair. "But at least now we can figure out where we are going." He turned and began to read the signpost, and Alistair did the same.

There were dozens of signs attached to the wooden stake, each pointing in a different direction, each inscribed in a flowing foreign script with the names of places that neither Alistair nor Zuko had ever heard of.

A sign that read _Emerald City _pointed toward a garish road paved entirely with yellow stones that lead through a gaudy green meadow covered in a quilt of ostentatiously Technicolor flowers.

Another sign that read _Wonderland_ pointed simply to a small burrow that looked like the cozy dwelling of a furry little woodland creature, which was not nearly as strange as the sign that read _Narnia_ that pointed to a random wardrobe that was leaning against a tree.

A fourth sign pointed in the direction of a strange and alien path framed by a pair of impossibly long steel bars that ran parallel to each other and were crisscrossed with thousands of wooden planks. It looked to Alistair like a much larger version of something he had seen in a dwarven mine once; a sort of special pathway made for carts that made ore and supplies easier to transport. The sign read _Hogwarts_.

Yet another sign read _Mordor_, and it pointed toward a distant range of ominous and bleak mountains that had what appeared to be a perpetual thunderstorm raging over it. There was no pathway of any sort leading in that direction, and the sign seemed to justify this with a smaller inscription just below the first which read _Warning: One does not simply walk into Mordor._

Finally they spotted it; a small dilapidated sign which pointed directly in front of them to a white cobblestone pathway that was lined with black roses. It read _The Garden of the Dead_**.**

"See?" Said Zuko, starting down the path. "We were going the right way after all."

"Okay, okay." Alistair conceded, following after him. "Maybe I was wrong about the frog on the log. But I swear they looked exactly the same." He scratched his head thoughtfully. "Maybe they were following us? Maybe, right after we passed them, the frog got up, grabbed the log it was sitting on, hopped ahead of us, got back on the log, and waited for us to pass by again. You know, like a Will-O-Wisp? Trying to make us lose our way so we end up lost in the forest for all eternity or whatever. You think?"

"I doubt it." Said Zuko quietly, falling in beside Alistair so that the two of them were walking side-by-side. "But you're right about one thing; we _are_ being followed."

"What? How do you know?"

"I started hearing the sounds of somebody slicing through the woods in the distance not long after we left Koh's realm. And when we stopped at the signpost, I'm certain I heard the sound of somebody struggling through the underbrush not far behind."

"You thought we were being followed since we left the Spirit Jungle?" Alistair asked, temporarily forgetting about his 'frog on the log' conundrum. "When were you going to tell _me_ about this?"

"I'm telling you now. I wasn't sure before, but now I'm certain. Somebody is following us, and whoever they are they're big and heavy-footed."

"Well, _late_ is better than _never_ I suppose." Alistair sighed. "So…is this why you've been so distracted?"

Zuko was silent for a moment.

"That's…that's part of the reason, yes." He finally said. "But there is something else…something I've been meaning to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"It's about what Koh said to us in parting. You know…the 'we will meet again, Your Highness' thing."

"Ah. _That_." Said Alistair, suddenly appearing rather awkward.

"I figured I might as well come out and tell you. I owe you that much for saving my…err, _face_, back there." Zuko pressed on, taking a deep breath. "I…might not have been completely honest with you before when I told you who I was." Alistair was looking at Zuko strangely now.

"What do you mean?" He pressed, one eyebrow raised and a slight grin playing on the corner of his lips. Zuko closed his eyes, momentarily steeling himself. Best to get it all out quickly, get it over with as soon as possible. He opened his eyes.

"I am Zuko, son of Firelord Ozai. I am the banished Prince of the Fire Nation, and rightful heir to the throne."

There was a pause as he let the news sink in.

_This is it. _Zuko thought to himself bitterly. _This is the part where I am judged for being who I am, condemned for the mistakes of my father and my father's father. This is the part where Alistair, likely fueled by his anger at the Fire Nation's countless atrocities over the years, will draw his sword, point it at my throat, and tell me to leave unless I want to be run through. _He readied himself for the worst. Finally, after what felt like an agonizing eternity to Zuko, Alistair spoke.

"Oh. You too?" He said with a chuckle. Zuko looked at Alistair, completely dumbfounded.

"What?"

"It just so happens that I'm a royal bastard. Quite literarily, I'm afraid. That makes us a pair of princes, I suppose."

"What?" Zuko repeated, still utterly lost.

"I'm…well, I mean my mother was, err, a scullery maid, and my father was…well, he was sort of Maric, King of Fereldan. Which makes me the illegitimate heir to the throne. Apparently." Alistair explained sheepishly.

"Are you making fun of me?" Zuko demanded, sounding angry and astounded all at once.

"I'm afraid not."

"It's just…well, you didn't mention—"

"And neither did you. Besides, it's not something I usually bring up, and you didn't ask."

_He's right_, Zuko realized, somewhat ashamedly. _I didn't ask. I don't think I've asked him one thing about his life since we met. He knows plenty about me; wouldn't stop asking me questions my past, my interests, my home, and I don't know anything about him._

"Alistair—" Zuko started (though he wasn't sure what he wanted to say), but Alistair interrupted him.

"We're here." He said simply, gesturing ahead. Zuko turned, and saw that he was right.

Ahead of them the white path ended. Taking its place was a tall and foreboding grayish-green hedgerow that sprawled forth into an impossibly convoluted maze.

At the entrance into the enigmatic network of hedges stood yet another sign. Written on it, in the same foreign and flowing script as the others, was the following message:

_"This is the Garden of the Dead. Within this labyrinth wanders the restless souls of deceased flora, the vengeful spirits of wrongfully devoured produce, and the enraged souls of fruits and vegetables that went rotten before their time. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, and may the Gods have mercy on ye if ye have ever wronged a plant."_

They stood staring at the sign for a minute, neither one saying a word. Finally Alistair broke the silence as he had become accustomed to doing.

"What a cheerful little sign." He commented. "A few too many _ye's _in that last linefor my taste, though. That's lazy authoring, that is."

Yet another short pause was added to the already colossal repertoire of short pauses that this story has inexplicably acquired.

"I suppose we had better go in…" Zuko finally said, rather distastefully. He was obviously not keen on the idea.

"After you, _your highness_." Alistair smirked, giving a mock bow and gesturing Zuko forward.

"My deepest thanks, _your majesty_." Zuko quipped back, rolling his eyes. He started his way into the maze with Alistair close behind.

At the first fork in the road, the duo stopped.

"Eeny meeny miney moh?" Alistair offered, shrugging. Zuko thought for a moment. Then he took out his sword and started down the path on the left, dragging the blade on the ground as he went.

"To mark our trail." He explained to Alistair. This time it was the templar's turn to roll his eyes.

"Yeah, thanks. I would never have figured that one out." He remarked, following slowly after the future Firelord.

Now I _could_ (if I really wanted to) spend countless paragraphs describing the pair of princes' journey into the Garden of the Dead. But let's face it; this story is already late and running long, and, quite frankly, I'm tired of writing it.

Suffice it to say that the two of them wandered deep into the maze using Zuko's sword-dragging technique to keep track of where they'd been, a fog rolled in, and before they knew it they were hopelessly lost deep in the middle of the Labyrinth.

That's all you're going to get out of me. I'm not going to spend any more of my valuable time describing semi-irrelevant details to you, like the fact that, as the echoing footsteps drew closer our two heroes managed to ascertain that their hunter was a heavily armored man by the sounds of his clanking chainmail.

I'm also not going to describe to you the twists and turns of the maze, the constant dead ends, or how the fog was so thick that they could have grabbed a handful of it, heated it in a furnace, shaped it into a knife with a blacksmiths hammer, and then used it to cut the residual fog.

And I'm certainly not going to tell you about the ominous-looking fruits and vegetables that seemed to almost follow the duo as they made their way through the gardens.

I'm not going to describe any of these things. So don't ask.

Right. Moving on.

"Zuko…" Alistair whispered conspiratorially to the raven-haired royal as he quietly followed him through the hedges. He wasn't quite sure why he was whispering—the sounds of pursuit had suddenly grown more distant a few minutes back, their sinister stalker apparently just as lost in the maze of deceased foliage as they were

"Yes?" Asked Zuko in a hushed tone. Like Alistair he found himself attempting to be extra stealthy for reasons he was unsure about, though he did a better job of it.

"I don't like the way that cabbage is staring at us."

Zuko turned around. Behind them—peeking out of the hedge like a shark peeking out of the water to get a better look at the scantily-clad swimmer it was about to devour—was a solitary cabbage, and even though everything inside Zuko told him that it was physiologically impossible, he was sure that it was glaring malevolently at them. No, strike that; _him_. Not Alistair. Just _him_.

"Cabbages can't stare evilly at people." Zuko said almost entirely to himself, firmly, but without conviction. "They don't have eyes, or faces…or the intellectual capacity to form thoughts or opinions about us."

Alistair laughed silently, the eeriness of the maze having driven him into a state of quiet hysteria. "The monkeys outside Koh's tree didn't have faces either, but tell me they weren't staring at us as we ran out of there."

The pair of princes continued in what they hoped was the right direction, creeping quietly as fast as their legs could carry them and trying to ignore the growing feeling that they were being watched all the way up to the next junction in the path—and stopped dead in their tracks.

There, laying right across the white cobblestone path that forked off to the left, was a line of cabbages.

"This is ridiculous!" Zuko insisted unsurely, but his body betrayed his growing fear; his hand was gripping the handle of his sword like he was worried it was going to try and fly away. "They're just vegetables! They aren't enraged souls! They aren't vengeful spirits! They're _produce_!"

There was the sudden sound of rustling leaves. The duo glanced behind them to see that several rows of cabbages had suddenly appeared on the path back the way they came. They were neatly arranged into columns, like soldiers in battle formation.

"Of course. Just produce." Alistair agreed, as he began to slowly back down the only pathway that wasn't blocked. "Basically just a pile of vitamin-enriched leaves. I bet there's even a perfectly logical explanation why they are slowly surrounding us right now." Zuko seemed, for a moment, like he was trying to come up with one. Then, apparently drawing up blanks, he too began to slowly back away from the hostile plants.

"This…this is silly. How could a cabbage become a _restless soul_?"

"Dunno." Alistair shrugged nervously. "Maybe…if it was murdered or something?"

Somewhere in Zuko's mind he heard splintering wood, the sounds of leafy green vegetables falling on the ground, the erratic yelling of an elderly merchant. Horrible realization hit him like a ton of bricks crashing down onto an unsuspecting cabbage merchant's stall.

"Run." Said Zuko, turning and taking off with surprising speed. Alistair, bad knee temporarily forgotten, was close behind.

It didn't take long for them both to realize that running was futile. They were there at every intersection, every crossways, every fork in the road; cabbages. More and more of them at every twist and turn. Vengeful, Restless, enraged cabbages with a vendetta.

Soon Alistair and Zuko weren't even looking where they were going. They stopped checking to see if the path they were moving down was one they had marked already; all that mattered to them was getting away from the cabbages.

Maybe that's why when they tore around the corner—running at eye-watering, heart pounding, blood-booming-in-your-ears, whatever-you-do-don't-look-back speed—they didn't see the dark, hulking shape until it was too late.

Crash! Three figures collided together in a tangled pile of limbs and armor.

"Argh! What did we hit?" Alistair groaned, pulling himself off the ground, dazed. He turned to the dark-haired figure beside him. "You ok, Zu—?" He stopped. Zuko's hair wasn't that long. Well…not in this episode.

"YOU!" The dark-haired figure snarled as he lifted himself up to his full height.

"Oh, no._ You_?" Alistair groaned at the man as he pulled a dizzy Zuko off of the ground.

"Whossat?" Zuko mumbled, his vision still swimming. Somehow he had ended up on the bottom of the pile with some body's elbow stabbing into his forehead. Alistair sighed.

"Zuko, this is Teyrn Loghain the Incredible Douchebag." He gave a half-hearted gesture up to the tall and imposing stranger.

"That is _King_ Loghain the Incredible Douchebag to _you_, you impetuous little worm!" Loghain spat at Alistair with all the venom and overconfidence of a classic Disney villain and pointed to a shiny new golden crown that rested atop his head. "I'm twice the King that fool Cailan ever was!"

"Another member of the Fereldan monarchy?" Zuko asked, amazed and still rather ditzy from his blow to the skull. "Is there anybody in the whole Realm of Dreams who _isn't_ royalty?"

"Why are you here, Loghain?" Alistair demanded exasperatedly. "We're fresh out of thrones for you to usurp here. Are you supposed to be one of my nightmares or something? Because you're not really all that _scary_; just rather annoying, really."

"Silence, cur!" Loghain spat, and he drew out his hefty greatsword. "You know why I have come. I will drag you into the dungeons of Nightmare Keep by force if need be!"

Leaves rustled close by. The sound was faint, but audible, and it sobered Zuko up in an instance.

"We need to get out of here." He urgently whispered to Alistair.

"Nobody's going anywhere!" Loghain roared, pointing his sword at Alistair's throat but looking at Zuko. "I've no quarrel with you, stranger, but by the Maker I'll strike you down if you get in my way!"

Zuko looked up at the ferocious and imposing figure that was Loghain. There was no way that the two of them, injured and breathless as they were, could defeat him in combat. That left only one option; outrun him.

Then Zuko spotted Alistair's leg. It was trembling and buckling and he was bleeding profusely from the injury in his knee again, the escape from the cabbages having apparently reopened the wound. There was no way he would be able to run on that leg.

Alistair caught Zuko's gaze, and read his mind.

"Go." He commanded in a voice just above a whisper. Zuko didn't move. "Run. There's no reason we should both die. Don't be a royal idiot." Alistair added, smiling sadly. "Just…go."

Zuko turned his gaze back to Loghain, this time looking him right in his cold black eyes. Then he walked over till he was side by side with Alistair.

"If you want to take him, you'll have to take me to."

"You poor daft fool." Alistair mumbled, shaking his head in bewilderment, but smiling at Zuko ever so slightly.

"Oh? So is that how it's going to be?" Loghain demanded maliciously. He shrugged. "Very well then." He advanced on them, sword raised, forcing them backwards into a corner so there would be no escape.

The nearby hedges rustled again, louder this time, and Alistair heard it for the first time. A light bulb went off inside his head.

"I admit it; I never thought it would end like this for me." Zuko commented, readying his good arm for a fight till the bitter end. He wasn't planning on going gentle into that good night, (to quote Dylan Thomas). "I always assumed that I'd die chasing the avatar. Either that or my sister would shoot me with lightning." He gave a sidelong glance to Alistair, who was grinning in a rather disconcerting manner. "How about you?"

"It's about what I expected to be honest."

"Really?"

"Well, some of it. I admit I didn't foresee the part about being lost in a maze after being chased by vengeance-hungry vegetables in the metaphysical realm of dreams." Alistair conceded. Then he shot a defiant look at Loghain. "But _this_ part—slain by Loghain, killer of kings, traitor to all of Fereldan, and all around bastard—_this_ part doesn't surprise me at all."

"I am the _savior_ of Fereldan!" Loghain roared, the veins on his neck bulging and looking dangerously close to rupturing. "You and your order of do-nothing glory-hungry Gray Wardens are the traitors. _You_ are the ones responsible for Fereldan's troubles, not I."

"Just like we were responsible for the death of Cailan?" Alistair pressed passionately as the rustling sounds in the hedges became more and more frequent. "Or like we were responsible for our catastrophic losses at Ostagar?"

"What happened at Ostagar was regrettable, but it was for the greater good." Loghain insisted adamantly.

"Was what happened to small towns like Lothering for the greater good?" Alistair was almost shouting now, as if he was a teacher and he was trying to make sure that what he was about to say would be heard by the children in the back of the classroom because it would DEFINITLEY be on the test. "Because of our loss at Ostagar—a loss _you_ caused with your untimely withdrawal—Lothering and dozens of other small _farming_ towns were swallowed up by the Blight."

It was then that Zuko, who had up until this point been thoroughly confused by his ally's efforts at reasoning with the enemy, noticed the special way that Alistair had emphasized the word _farming_ and finally understood his plan.

"To save the many, a few must be sacrificed." Loghain asserted, though with a little less fervor than before. He, too, had noticed the strange stressing of the word and was trying to find sense in it. Perhaps that was why he was only vaguely aware of a growing commotion in the hedges behind him; he was distracted with trying to figure out what Alistair was up to. "If the lives of a few farmers in a backwater village are the price to be paid for the survival of Fereldan, then so be it."

The rustling in the hedges became…angrier. Alistair decided it was time to drive it home.

"When I think about all that farm land left abandoned to the Darkspawn—the fields left fallow, the innocent crops rotting in the pastures, the golden wheat trampled underfoot and stained red with the blood of those who once lovingly cultivated it—it just makes me feel _sick_." He managed to squeeze out a single tear. "How can you live with yourself, Loghain, knowing you're responsible for these atrocities?"

Loghain looked thoroughly confused now, and like most stereotypical villains, being confused made him exceedingly angry. "What the hell are you talking about? The _crops_? You're concerned about the safety of the _crops_? We're in the middle of a Blight! Who gives a damn about the fate of a couple of acres of farmland, you worthless fool!"

That did it. Suddenly, Loghain found himself surrounded by what appeared to be incredibly pissed-off lettuce.

"What the—?!" He started to inquire, but was cut off when a hundred revenge-crazed cabbages lunged at him, snarling, ravenous, and their grudge against the fire prince temporarily forgotten.

To say that they tore him apart would be an understatement. The cabbages ripped him to bloody shreds, tearing off strips of flesh with their nonexistent mouths and devouring him piece by gory piece as he screamed with the force and intensity of an entire army betrayed and left to die on the battlefield.

His crown came toppling off of his head, rolling a few feet away before it settled under a rose bush. It was spattered with blood.

Zuko and Alistair didn't wait around to watch the whole sanguine spectacle; they took off as quickly as their weary legs could carry them, and in no time the end of the maze was in sight.

The pair of princes didn't stop to catch their breath until they were could no longer hear Loghain's distant wails of cabbage-related anguish. They followed the white cobblestone path for a while, but the trail leaving the garden was faint and soon petered out altogether.

They continued walking aimlessly for a while after that, and soon found themselves inexplicably in the middle of frozen desert, victims to yet another one of the Fade's random geographical alterations.

All around them there were dunes of swirling crimson sand, and above them there was the inky purple-blackness of outer space, illuminated only by the gentle twinkling of millions of little stars.

On the horizon there was a faint black blob, above which dark clouds swirled in a sinister cyclone. It was undoubtedly Nightmare Keep.

In front of them there was yet another sign. It read:

_Welcome to Day Dream Desert: Let Your Mind Wander and Your Body Will Follow._

There was nothing else around them but red sand for countless miles in every direction, and that could mean only one thing; more walking.

And so they pressed on, trudging slowly through shifting sands of Day Dream Desert for what seemed like ages.

Soon the weariness of their bodies and their dull, unchanging surroundings caught up with them, and they did indeed let their minds wander. It suddenly struck them that they had not eaten or drank anything since their arrival in the Realm of Dreams, and neither was really sure whether this was going to be a problem.

They let their minds wander off to a place where there was delicious food and cool ale laid out around a warm camp fire, plenty of fresh hot water bubbling up out of a nearby hot spring, tall trees to provide them with shade, and soft grass to sleep on outside under the stars.

And, to their mutual surprise, their bodies followed.

"If I'm having a mirage right now please don't try to shake me out of it." Alistair insisted as he practically leapt into the campsite and started shoveling food into his mouth. "Oh, _Cheese_! I _love_ cheese!"

"I don't think this is a mirage." Zuko said, following him into the paradise at a more reserved pace. Another sign was nailed to a nearby tree. Zuko approached it cautiously. "It says here were in Camp Respite; it's a sort of haven for wayward travelers in the Realm of Dreams."

"That so?" Alistair mumbled through a mouthful of gorgonzola. "Great. Need a rest."

"I'm not sure this place is safe." Zuko said, looking mistrustfully at the little paradise.

"Awwww come on!" Alistair begged, pouting his lips and shooting Zuko his best Sad Puppy look. "Pweaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase?"

Zuko sighed. He was tired of being suspicious of everything. They were both weary, hungry, and injured; Alistair's knee wound had been dripping a trail of blood since they left the maze, and Zuko needed to change the bandages on his arm. Camp Respite was exactly what they needed right now.

Besides, there was no way he was going to be able to dislodge Alistair from his cheese pile anytime soon.

"Fine." He conceded, sitting down at the fire across from Alistair. "We'll rest up, but just for one night." Alistair beamed like a little kid on his birthday, and offered a cheese wheel to Zuko.

"So what was the deal with that Loghain guy anyway?" Zuko asked after taking a hesitant bite of the cheese and eventually deciding that he preferred a soup that smelled strongly of fish.

"It's a long story." Alistair commented vaguely. "You probably don't want to hear it. Rather depressing really."

"We have all night." Zuko persisted. He gave Alistair what he hoped was a friendly smile. Alistair grinned back at him, then took a deep breath,

"Well I suppose it all started back at the battle of Ostagar…"

And so the time had come for the pair of princes to talk of many things. At first, Alistair did a majority of the speaking. He finally told Zuko his story; about Teyrn Loghain the Incredible Douchebag, the Death of King Cailan and Duncan, the Gray Warden's, the Blight, swooping witch-thiefs, the trouble at Redcliff and the Circle of Magi, and how he ended up in the Realm of Dreams in the first place.

Zuko listened to all these things with a look of bewildered fascination; never in his wildest dreams could he imagine the things that Alistair described to him. Some of it sounded horrible, even terrifying. Some of it sounded beautiful and magnificent. All of it enthralled him, and soon he found that he was _actually_ asking Alistair questions about his world and his life and even prompting him to explain and elaborate on things he didn't understand.

"So…they're basically really short, angry, bearded alcoholics who carry battle axes around with them everywhere they go, live in a hole underground, and spend most of their days laboring in a mine or smithy and whistling jolly working tunes? Right?"

"That is essentially what a dwarf is, yes."

"So, wait…what is an _elf_ then?"

"Elves are the skinny tree-hugging nomads with the pointy ears, whacky tattoos, and a borderline obsession with nature and all its furry little creatures."

"Oh. And what do they do?"

"Practice archery and prance around the forest in revealing leather armor, mostly. They also talk to the trees and the rivers and the stones. You know, when the mood strikes them."

"What an interesting culture…"

They talked about everything that came into their minds. Together, the two of them speculated on the big questions; they discussed the very nature of themselves and their individual worlds, for now they were sure that they couldn't possibly have lived in the same one. Soon things got philosophical.

"Have you ever felt like you were the villain in your own story?" Zuko asked Alistair as he helped him treat the wound on his leg.

"Well, sometimes I feel like a right bastard, but I don't think I've—Ow!" Alistair winced.

"Don't be a baby."

"It _hurt_."

"It wouldn't hurt if you stop flinching." Zuko said sternly.

"Well I wouldn't flinch if you'd be gentler."

"Do you want my help or not?"

Alistair sighed. He couldn't reach his knee to bandage it properly without causing searing pain in a slash he had picked up on his side, or else he'd have bandaged himself. "Proceed." He begrudgingly conceded.

Zuko nodded and went back to work.  
"No, I've never felt like a villain." Alistair eventually finished answering the question, evidently forgiving Zuko for his poor bedside manner. "Why do you ask, anyway?"

There was yet another short pause

"Sometimes I feel like I'm on the wrong side, you know. Like the people I'm fighting against are the…the good guys, and I'm the antagonist; the character who only exists to challenge the hero."

"Why not switch sides?" Alistair offered, trying desperately not to move as Zuko fiddled with the bindings of the old bandage and wrapped the new one tightly around it.

"It's not that simple." Zuko insisted, trying to stay focused on his work.

"Why not?" Alistair pressed, and Zuko seemed unable to come up with a rebuttal.

"You know what I just realized." Zuko said to Alistair later as the two of them sat by the camp fire drinking tea and ale respectively. "I've been in countless battles in my life; I fought against the Northern Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, and the Avatar and his friends. I shoot fire and lightning out of my hands, I'm an expert with dual swords, and yet, in all that fighting, I don't believe I've ever killed a single person."

"What, seriously?"

"Seriously. I mean…I defeat a whole bunch of people; I leave them injured or tied up or they run off in fear. Or I escape. But I don't think that I've ever actually _killed_ any of them. In fact, I don't think that I've ever even seen somebody get killed before I came here. Fire nation soldiers carry these massive spears and polearms into battle, and yet I've never seen somebody get run through with one. It's like…they don't actually use the pointy part. They just sort of hold it threateningly until they are inevitably defeated by a much smaller, less heavily-armed force usually half-made up of children."

"That's seriously weird…"

"Why? How many people have you seen die?"

Alistair laughed.

"Literarily _thousands_."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. It seems like me and my team are _always_ covered in blood and gore."

"Gross."

"Yeah. And sometimes our leader makes her dog lick it up off us."

"_Why_? That's disgusting!"

"I dunno." Alistair shrugged. "I never asked."

Night persisted, and the two men continued to rest and heal. They bathed in the hot spring, they ate until their hunger was satiated, and they rested in the grass, talking about anything and everything that came to their mind. Soon, they begin to grow close.

**Alistair Approves** **+3**

"What was that?" Zuko demanded, looking down toward his feet and appearing rather startled.

"What was what?"

"That writing that I suddenly saw appear at the bottom of the screen—er, I mean out of the corner of my eye?"

"I didn't see anything."

"Maybe it was just my imagination…" Zuko said, settling back down.

"You're probably just tired." Alistair concluded. "Relax." They sat in silence for a while, warming themselves around the campfire and eating more of their food, which, Zuko realized, had to be magically replenishing itself. At the rate Alistair ate, they would definitely have run out by now if it wasn't.

"Want the rest of my cheese?" Zuko offered after a while, holding up half a cheese wheel. "I'm pretty full."

"Is this for me? REALLY?" Alistair gasped, his eyes wide as dinner plates as he graciously accepted the gift. "W-Wow! Thanks! I mean, just…WOW!"

**Alistair Approves+6**

"There it is again!"

"Seriously, man, I don't see anything. Maybe you should lie down for a while…"

Self-replenishing food wasn't the only magic of the camp; their wounds also healed slowly as the night drug on.

At least, it was _probably_ magic. After all, the wounds would have taken months to heal by themselves, and they had been in Camp Respite for less than a night.

Right?

Soon, their injuries were gone, and they occupied some of their time practicing swordplay.

"You're really talented with a blade, Zuko." Alistair commented. He was reclining lazily against a tree, watching Zuko practice with his dual swords. His arm may have been healed, but it was still a little rusty in battle, and Zuko reasoned that if the two of them were going to have to charge into Nightmare Keep and slay 'what they fear most' in pitched combat in order to escape the Realm of Dreams once and for all, it would be a good idea to practice a bit. "What's your secret?"

"A lot of people think that it's the size of the sword that matters, like your friend Teyrn Loghain with his ridiculous unwieldy greatsword." Zuko stated matter-of-factly as he fluidly walked through a series of stances and strikes designed to optimize his strength and balance in combat. "They're wrong. It's not the size of a man's blade; it's how he _uses_ it."

"You don't say?" Alistair said, doing his best not to crack a smile.

"Yes." Zuko continued. "A bad swordsman just swings his blade about wildly, pounding on his opponent with all he has for a very brief period before inevitably becoming exhausted. A good swordsman, on the other hand, paces himself. He knows exactly when to thrust, where to strike, and what positions give him the most access to his enemy's weak spots. Using all of these skills, he can force even a much bigger and more powerful warrior to his knees and—what's so funny?"

"No-nothing!" Alistair gasped, trying desperately to repress the laughter that was bubbling up inside of him. "I j-just thought of th-this really funny joke. Please, tell me more!" Zuko squinted at his companion suspiciously, but continued anyway.

"A good swordsman treats his sword with respect; he views it as an extension of himself, like a piece of his own body. He keeps it sheathed whenever it's not in use, especially around towns with women and children, who are usually made uneasy by seeing a man's uncovered weapon. He also takes good care of his blade and polishes it regularly—"

Zuko didn't make it any further, for at that moment Alistair fell to the ground and began laughing hysterically.

Somewhere deep down within themselves, they both knew that they had been staying at Camp Respite for far longer than a single night, and yet neither brought it up. Rather, they continued to enjoy each other's company; eating and drinking together when they got hungry or thirsty, sparring with each other when they got bored, taking a dip in the hot springs together when they felt dirty, and laying back and watching the stars together when they wanted to relax.

By some magic trick of the Fade, the one night they spent at Camp Respite lasted for months, and the pair of princes became quite close. They talked about things that they had never talked about with anyone else before; their hopes and dreams, their secret fears…and their love lives.

"Do you have a girl waiting for you back home, Zuko?" Alistair asked nonchalantly. They stood side by side, looking up into the sky and watching the twinkling stars, the glimmering planets, and the big blue moon.

"Not really." Zuko responded quietly. "There was this one girl I sort of had a crush on when I was a little kid, but…"

"But?" Alistair persisted.

"Well she's really kind of…depressing; she never expresses any emotion at all. Plus she's one of my sister's friends, and together they _occasionally_ chase me around the whole known world and try to kill me."

"Oh. That's rough."

"Yeah." Zuko agreed sadly. But he realized that it wasn't the thought of Mai that had made him sad, but rather the reverse; the thought of returning home and leaving the Realm of Dreams behind now made him…miserable. _None of this is real. _He thought bitterly to himself. _It's all just a dream._ _In the morning, we'll head off to Nightmare Keep. We'll slay the source of our Nightmares. And then we'll head our separate ways. And we will never see each other again…_

He stood there, frowning in silence, contemplating this depressing thought until he noticed the concerned look Alistair was giving him out of the corner of his eye.

"How about you?" Zuko asked suddenly, looking away and trying to seem as if he was fine. "Do you have somebody special back home?"

A rogue mental image assaulted Alistair's mind; the Warden garbed only in smallclothes, a come-hither stare, a suggestive brow raised, and a devilish grin playing on readied lips. The Warden's weapon of choice was standing vertically between sensually splayed thighs; a hand—muscular and heavily calloused—strokes it roughly. All around the Warden, the bodies of Darkspawn are festering under a bright full moon, and in a nearby bush Zevran secretly waits and watches the scene with anticipation.

Alistair shuddered.

"Errr...No. No. Not really." He insisted, suddenly uncomfortable. "I mean there's this person who…but no! Were friends! It's not that I haven't thought about it, mind you. I dunno, maybe I'm being too picky. It's just…I guess I always imagined myself with somebody…_different_."

"Different how?" Zuko pressed, suddenly feeling very warm and jittery.

"I dunno. Maybe what I want is somebody more…" he turned and looked at Zuko "focused." Zuko quickly averted his gaze back up to the stars. He was glad it was dark; he could feel his cheeks going pink.

"I know what you mean." He said after a while, his heart beating suddenly harder and faster. "Sometimes I think it would be nice with somebody a little more…" he turned back to Alistair "Lighthearted."

"Adroit." Alistair added, stepping a little closer.

"Funny." Zuko offered, his cheeks as red as the fire he usually bends.

"Driven."

"Kind."

"Complex."

"Down-to-Earth."

Alistair was very close to Zuko now; their faces were almost touching, they're eyes were locked together. Alistair leaned forward, ever so slightly—

_We will head our separate ways…we will never see each other again…_

Zuko drew back.

"I…I can't. I'm sorry." He turned his back to Alistair. He couldn't bear to see the pain on his face. "I mean…it's not you. It's me, you understand? I'm…I'm the banished prince of the Fire Nation, and you're the bastard prince of Fereldan. We're just…too different. It'd never work out."

Alistair looked up at him, heartbreak burning in his eyes and carved into his face.

"No, I...I get it. You're… probably right." He choked out, and the pain in his voice made Zuko cringe. _It's for his own good._ Zuko tried to convince himself. _No point in getting his hopes up. We can never be together…_

There was the most incredibly awkward short pause that this story has yet to manage. This short pause was so incredibly awkward that it went on to be nominated for Most Awkward Short Pause in a Gay Fanfiction of the Year. It lost to a short pause in a fanfiction about Darth Vader and Voldemort meeting Hitler in a Starbucks, but it was nice to be nominated.

"I suppose we better head out." Zuko eventually said, breaking the silence. "Nightmare Keep awaits." _Yes. Nightmare Keep awaits_. _Our old lives, our old worlds, await…_

Alistair said nothing. He didn't even move.

"It's for the best, Alistair."

"I understand completely."

**Alistair Dissaproves-20**

Not too far away from Camp Respite there was a rather old and rotten log. On that log there sat a frog, who was watching, with great interest, the solemn departure of our two heroes from their former paradise. And inside that frog, there were flies. Flies and something else; a dark and evil presence, a wicked being from yet another plane of existence, something more terrible than all the demons and monsters in the Fade combined.

_Soon. _The presence thought. _They will be mine._

And with that, the frog hopped off his log, tucked it under one arm, and followed after the pair of princes as they made their way toward a black splotch on the horizon.


	5. Chapter 5: In Your Dreams

**Chapter Five: In Your Dreams**

"We're here." Zuko announced. Before them lay Nightmare Keep; a massive black citadel located on an island of rock that was logic-defyingly suspended in midair. The keep itself would have been entirely inaccessible were it not for an ancient and dilapidated-looking rope bridge that tethered it to the ground.

Alistair said nothing; silently he approached the rickety bridge and started his way up to the Keep. He had been like this since their little 'talk' back at camp and Zuko couldn't blame him for it.

_It had to be done. _Zuko tried to convince himself as he dejectedly followed after Alistair. _Better he hate me now than be heartbroken forever when we can never see each other again._

When he reached the top, Alistair was already there. And he wasn't alone. There, sitting in front of the foreboding black gates to Nightmare Keep like a miniature sentinel, was a frog sitting on a log.

"What did I tell you?" Alistair sighed exasperatedly after some time. "Same frog. Same log."

"What's it doing here?" Zuko demanded, who no longer trusted things that magically appeared out of nowhere and blocked peoples paths.

"Waiting for you." Said the frog.

There was a pause. This one was justifiable.

"It talks, too." Alistair laughed bitterly, glaring at Zuko. "Told you so."

"Yes. I talk." Said the frog. "For you see, I am not actually a frog on a log." And with that, the frog leapt off the log, stood up on two feet like a human, and began to twist, contort, and swell violently. Within seconds, the frog was no longer there at all, and in its place stood a full-sized man with dark tan skin and black hair.

"I am actually M. Night Shyamalan, and I've come for _you_, Fire Prince Zoku!"

"Zoku?" Alistair questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"It's how his name is _correctly_ pronounced. Look it up." Shyamalan insisted. "Now, Zoku, if you would be so kind as to come with me…"

"Yeah, I don't think so." Zuko said, crossing his arms stubbornly. "And it's Zoo-Koh. Not Zah-Koo."

Shyamalan looked ruthlessly at Zuko.

"I'm afraid I was asking just to be polite, Zoku." He laughed gravely. "You will be coming with me, whether you like it or not."

"Why don't you come over here and _try_ to take me!" Zuko challenged, drawing out his swords and approaching Shyamalan.

"Put those away, Zoku." Shyamalan demanded. And to Zuko's own shock and horror, he found himself obeying.

"What the—!" Zuko gasped, as he struggled against his traitorous arms. He looked furiously at Shyamalan, who was smirking victoriously at him. "How are you—?"

"Easy." Shyamalan laughed, and he pulled a piece of paper out of the log he had been sitting on back when he was a simple frog. "See this? It's a bill of sale. I _own_ you; bought your rights in another plane of existence, so you have to do what I say."

"That's impossible!" Zuko growled furiously. "Release me now, you pompous little bastard and we'll see how powerful you really—"

"Silence." Shyamalan ordered. Zuko's protests abruptly ended.

"Excellent. Now if you'd be so kind as to follow me through this interdimensional portal I keep in my log…"

Zuko tried to follow, but Alistair held him back.

"I don't know what kind of magic you're using to control Zuko like this," Alistair snarled, drawing his sword and shield and advancing on Shyamalan, "but I bet you can't do it if I separate your head from your body."

"Ah, and you'd probably win that bet." Shyamalan admitted, but then added with a smirk, "It's a shame you shall never get the chance to find out. Zoku:" he clapped his hands together as if he was ordering a dog to perform a trick, "Defend!"

Zuko ripped both of his blades back out of their respective sheathes, turned to face Alistair, and took an aggressive stance, all the while looking incredibly shocked that he was doing so. Alistair stopped in his tracks, momentarily deterred.

"Zuko wouldn't attack me." He assured himself, taking a hesitant step forward. Shyamalan raised an eyebrow.

"Wanna bet?" He snapped his fingers, and pointed at Alistair.

Zuko struck with all the speed of a viper, and the bastard prince barely managed to catch the blow on his shield. The seconds strike came for his head, and Alistair dodged out of the way just in time to avoid an amateur lobotomy.

"Zuko! Stop! Fight it!" Alistair shouted as blow after furious blow came whistling through the air at him. His shield took the worst of it, but Zuko was fast and skilled; soon Alistair was bleeding from a dozen little cuts all over his arm and sides.

Zuko's said nothing, and the onslaught of strikes just grew more and more brutal. Alistair was forced to give ground until he was nearly driven off the edge of the floating island.

"I don't want to have to hurt you Zuko! Resist it!" For a moment, the blows stopped coming. Zuko stood absolutely still, breathing heavily. He seemed to be regaining control again.

Then, without warning, he charged at Alistair, aiming both swords for his heart.

Alistair side-stepped and slammed Zuko onto the ground with his shield. Zuko bit the dirt.

Alistair stood over him for one brief moment, his sword pointed at Zuko's throat. _I'm going to have to kill him. _He realized with shock. _He won't let me near that bastard Shyamalan so I can strike him down, and he'll keep trying to kill me until he's dead; I have no choice._

He drew back his sword to strike the killing blow—

There was a short pause. This one, unlike the others, was incredibly relevant. For in this short pause, Alistair had an epiphany.

His sword arm went slack. He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill Zuko.

He loved him.

It was in this moment of intense emotional revelation that Zuko struck, sweeping Alistair's legs out from under him with a kick, leaping back up to his feet, and pointing his own sword at Alistair's throat. The tables had turned.

Shyamalan strolled up to where the defeated Alistair lay.

"You see?" He said, grinning unpleasantly. He waved the bill of sale in Alistair's face, just out of his reach. "As long as I have this, Zoku here has to do whatever I say. You've lost, Alaustere! Lost! Bwa hahahahahahahah—"

And then, in the middle of Shyamalan's maniacal laughter, something unexpected happened. There was a TWANG, the whistle of a projectile soaring through the air, and the thud as an arrow buried itself an inch deep in the psychotic movie-directors head.

"Is someone there?!" Shyamalan immediately shouted, spinning around and looking in every direction for his attacker.

"I guess it was just my imagination…" He decided after a while of searching, and turned around to go back to his business—

And ran straight into the hulking figure of warrior dressed entirely in mail armor and wearing a horned norse helmet.

"Who the Hell—?" He started to exclaim, but he never got the chance to finish.

"FUS RO DAH!" The shout came booming out of his throat like the deadliest burp in recorded history, slammed into Shyamalan with all the force of a charging stallion, and threw him backwards off the cliff to a steep 200 foot fall. There was a muffled splat, and then silence.

The bill of sale wafted lazily after him, landing in a pool of his blood and staining red.

Zuko immediately dropped both his swords and fell to his knees.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" He gasped, out of breath as if he had just run a mile.

"It's fine." Alistair assured him. "People are always trying to kill me. No big deal." Zuko offered him his hand and pulled him up off the ground, and then they both turned to face the stranger who had saved them.

"It seems we owe you a great debt, stranger, for saving our lives just now." Alistair thanked the mysterious swordsman, who, now that he got a closer look at him, turned out to be a massive green man who had two prominent lower fangs that stuck out over his upper lip and was covered in a layer of muscles so thick and hard that if you rubbed coal against his abs, you probably could create diamonds. "Is there anything we can do to repay you?" The stranger seemed to consider this for a moment, stroking his rather impressive beard thoughtfully.

"Perhaps…if it's, you know, not _too_ much of a bother," he began in a booming voice, yet looking rather sheepish, "you might give me just an eency weency bit of…your souls?"

"Belial?" Alistair gasped.

From somewhere far below, Zuko heard the faint sound of Shyamalan shout "What a twist!" before his crumpled body finally gave out and he descended back into the fiery pits of Hell from whence he originated.

"How'd you know?" Belial asked, grinning shyly.

"But how did you get _here_?" Alistair asked, rather befuddled. "I thought you were at the crossroads, playing your magic box."

"Oh I'm there too." Belial assured him. "That box allows me to control a person who actually lives in Skyrim. I beat the game and saved the world and all that, so I decided to just free-roam it for a while. Ending up here was just a total accident, to be honest. I must have gotten turned around in the Kanto Region…"

"Skyrim's a real place?" Alistair asked, sounding thoroughly amazed.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, it's due east of the Lands of Ooo, right below the place in space where the Great A'tuin is currently nesting, and just south of Equestria. And speaking of Equestria, you should check out this epic mount I got from there." He sidestepped to reveal a tiny, blue, winged horse with rainbow colored hair and a furious look in its eyes.

"That…" said Alistair, utterly blown away, "is about twenty percent cooler than any other mount I've ever seen. EVER."

"I know, right?" Belial agreed enthusiastically. "Well, anyways, I better get back to my adventuring. Won't have time for this kind of stuff after you off ol' Slothy; be too busy running my kingdom." Belial tossed a huge leg on either side of his miniscule mount and took a sturdy hold of the reigns. "Good luck with your quest, mortal—err, I mean _Alistair_!" He whipped the reigns with a mighty "Giddyup, girl!" and the little pony took off, flying through the air with a 200 pound orc on its back and a rainbow coming out of its backside.

That left Zuko and Alistair alone once more. They turned in sync to face each other, and then the massive unguarded gates of Nightmare Keep.

"It's now or never." Zuko said, grabbing a door handle and readying himself for whatever horror might lie within.

"I'd prefer if it was never." Alistair retorted, but nonetheless grabbed the other door handle and steeled himself to face his greatest fear.

"On the count of three?" Zuko offered.

"Fine." Alistair agreed.

"One—"

"Wait, on _three_? Or is it one, two, three _go_?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, sod it. Charge!"

They threw the doors back, drew their swords, and came rushing into Nightmare Keep at full speed.

Shadows danced across the great hall of Nightmare Keep, cast erratically onto the ceiling and all over the walls by a line of braziers that burned with a green fire.

At the far end of the hall, covered in swirling tendrils of pure darkness, was a solitary white doorway.

And there, between our heroes and the way back home, were the Kings of Nightmare Keep.

In the center of the room almost blending into the shadows was the massive black draconian form of the Archdemon. On its back, riding it like an Orc warrior rides a Pegasus, was the topless figure of Firelord Ozai.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then, in a flash of motion, the battle commenced.

The Archdemon roared and made a lunge for Alistair, which he managed to avoid with a timely roll.

On its back, the Firelord's hand burst into flames which he then threw at Zuko like flaming dodge balls. Zuko charged at him, side-steeping the explosions with quick leaps left and right.

The Archdemon added his flames to the foray, breathing green fire at Alistair, who managed to block it with his shield.

Zuko had closed the distance between him and his father by this point, and now was running up the Archdemon's tail like it was a staircase.

The Archdemon lunged at Alistair again; this time he was ready for it; he thrust his sword upward and caught the beast in its open mouth. It roared in agony, rearing up like a stubborn horse and flinging Alistair up into the air.

Zuko was thrown from the creature, landing on his back on the cold stone floor. The Firelord leapt off the injured Archdemon, his eyes glowing red and flames enveloping his hands. He came hurtling down for the finishing blow.

Alistair managed to spin himself around in midair and land like cat on the behemoths flailing snout. With a powerful yank, he tore his lost blade from the Archdemon's mouth and plunged it right between its eyes.

There was a deafening screech.

On the ground, the screech exploded in Zuko's ears, bringing him back to reality. He rolled—

BAM. The Firelord's flaming fist slammed into the stone exactly where Zuko's head had been half a second before, causing it to shatter.

In one swift motion, Zuko grabbed his blades, leapt back up to his feet, and sunk both swords into his dad's flesh; one hamstringing him and forcing him to the ground, the other decapitating him.

His headless body flopped onto the ground. There was a massive thud as the corpse of the Archdemon did the same.

Black tendrils like the ones overtaking the doorway seeped out of the bodies. Soon, they had dissolved back into the shadows completely.

The doorway cracked open.

The battle was over.

The two princes just stood there for a while, breathing heavily. Neither could believe it. After all the time they had spent trapped in the Realm of Dreams, their journey had come to an end. Finally, the thing they had fought so hard for was in their grasp; they could finally go home.

Yet neither of them moved. Instead, they turned to look at each other.

"We did it." Alistair said incredulously.

"We did." Zuko commented with less certainty. Something didn't seem quite right about the whole situation…

There was a short pause. It was, if we are all fortunate, the last short pause of the story.

"I guess we should be heading back to our own worlds now…" Alistair said eventually, though he didn't seem overly enthusiastic about the idea.

"Yes…I guess we should." Zuko agreed solemnly.

"So…this is goodbye?" Alistair asked, looking dejectedly over toward the fire prince.

"I suppose it is." Zuko said, looking down at the floor as if it suddenly became terribly interesting.

"Right. Well then." Alistair despondently stepped toward the ajar doorway. "Goodbye, Zuko. I hope you have a wonderful life." Zuko didn't respond. Alistair sighed, and stepped slowly through the doorway.

"Goodnight, sweet prince." Zuko said quietly to himself as Alistair stepped beyond the threshold.

Then, suddenly and without warning, the door slammed shut with Alistair on the other side. All the braziers in the room flashed out, and Zuko was alone in the darkness.

The second Alistair had stepped into the totally dark room, he knew something was wrong. The door slamming shut behind him had only confirmed his suspicions.

"Zuko?" He shouted, banging on the now closed doorway. "Zuko!" He tried to bust it down with his shoulder, but to no avail; it was rock solid and sealed tight.

From somewhere in the darkness Alistair heard the faint sounds of laughter. He spun suddenly around, keeping the door at his back and drawing his sword for protection.

The laughing grew closer, and soon it was followed by a voice.

"Did the poor little Gray Warden truly believe he had conquered Nightmare Keep? Did he truly believe that the Archdemon was his greatest fear, the source of his bad dreams?" The voice was female, sultry, and mocking. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Poor little templar drop-out; that would have been too obvious, too…simple. And the depths of a man's heart are rarely so; not even a man as dimwitted as you, _Alistair_."

"That voice…" Alistair murmured to himself. "It...It couldn't be. It's…impossible."

From out of the shadows, a woman _swooped_, knocking the sword out of Alistair's hand with a black wooden staff and pressing a hand that was glowing with powerful entropic energy up to his throat. The magic illuminated her features; her raven black hair, her dreadfully clever golden eyes, her barely-concealed bosom.

"Oh I wouldn't say that." Said Morrigan, smiling malevolently at him.

Somewhere in Equestria Pinkie Pie found herself singing the Evil Enchantress song, and she had no idea why.

"Alistair!" Zuko shouted, pounding on the door with all his might. "Alistair? Are you okay? Answer me!"

"I wouldn't worry about him right now, Zuzu." A cold voice pierced the darkness from directly behind him. "You've got bigger problems right now."

Zuko leapt to the right just as a bolt of lightning came spiraling out of the darkness. It struck the floor where he had been standing just moments before and left a black stain in the stone.

"Azula!" Zuko shouted. "Quit hiding in the dark and show yourself!"

"Fine. Whatever you say, _brother_." Azula's said snidely, and the braziers lit back up, but this time with a cool blue fire.

"Why are you here, Azula?" Zuko demanded, both hands ready to draw his dual swords at a moment's notice.

"Oh come now, Zuko. You must have realized that the battle with Daddy was too easy." Azula taunted. "You knew the moment you saw him here that something was wrong; _he's_ not the one you fear most…"

"I don't fear _you_, Azula." Zuko protested, perhaps too fervently.

"Then why _am_ I here, Zuko?" Azula scoffed. "Just to make pleasant conversation with you?" Zuko seemed to have no answer for this; she pressed her advantage. "But enough; I grow weary of idle chatter." She dropped into a battle stance that was infuriatingly perfect in every way. Blue fire burned on her hands. "Come, let us settle this like two royals; with an Agni Kai. To the death."

"I can't firebend here." Zuko reminded her. Azula smiled nastily.

"Then it will be a very short Agni Kai, wont it?"

Alistair looked in every direction, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of Morrigan. He had managed to escape her grasp, but before he could put an end to her, she had shape-shifted into a spider and crawled off. Now she could be anywhere in the dark room, watching him with eight angry red eyes.

"Poor little Alistair." Her voice came trilling from somewhere in the blackness, but it was impossible to tell from where. "He's stuck in my web, but this time the Warden's not here to get him out. Oh, what to do, what to do?"

Slowly, Alistair started to back up; he wanted his blind spot against a wall so he couldn't be ambushed from behind.

"Run run little fly, for the spider's coming to get you." Morrigan sang. "She'll inject you with her venom, tie you down with her thread, and then…just when you least expect it…she'll come in for the kill."

But Alistair _was_ expecting it. He quickly turned around and swung his shield like it was a baseball bat. He felt it connect with something, heard Morrigan screech angrily, and felt a spindly arm briefly brush by his.

All was quiet for a moment. Then, from out of the darkness came Morrigan's voice once again.

"That was a mistake, little fly." She growled—and I do mean _growled_.

_Uh oh._ Alistair thought. _I'd better_ _get out of here before she—_

SMACK. A massive, clawed paw came soaring out of the darkness and crashed into Alistair, sending him rolling across the stone floor.

Above him, a furious bear with jet black fur stood on its hind legs, roared, and charged at him.

It was only a matter of time, Zuko knew. He could only keep at it for so long.

He had thus far managed to avoid a majority of the fire and lightning Azula was raining down upon him; the great hall bore most of the scars of this battle.

Everything was in flames; even the stones were in flames. Eventually, Zuko would be in flames, too.

It was only a matter of time.

He couldn't get close enough with his swords to strike at her; whenever he tried she'd always whip up an exceedingly nasty wall of flames and force him back. Eventually he would run out of energy; he would slow down, and she would win.

All it would take was one blow from that lightning of hers and he would be a goner. There were large chunks of Nightmare Keep that had been blasted clean off by a stray bolt, to the point where Zuko not only had to dodge the various Incendiaries Azula sent spiraling his way, but he also had to make a conscious effort to avoid tripping and breaking his ankle in any of the growing number of ditches and potholes.

_If only Alistair were here_. Zuko thought. _I just can't do this on my own_.

A desperate idea took shape inside his head, and suddenly, as fire exploded all around him and the whole of Nightmare Keep seemed on the verge of collapse, he stopped running.

"I'm done." He announced loudly, surprising Azula so greatly that she let the energy of the universe slip through her fingers. Her flaming palms petered out.

"What do you mean, Zuzu? You don't want to play anymore?"

"I'm done!" Zuko repeated, louder this time. "I'm done running away! All my life I've been running from something; my past, my destiny, and"—_he thought of Alistair—"_even myself. But now I'm done. If I have to die, fine, but I'm not going to run anymore!" He stood there, facing Azula, his chest outthrust, daring her to strike him.

"Oh come now, Zuko. It's no fun if you don't run." She whined.

"I don't care." Zuko insisted. And he smiled. "I'm not scared of you anymore, Azula."

Azula just stood there for a moment in the center of the room, looking at the form of her beaming brother. He was smiling like he had _won_, like the simple solace received from the knowledge that he had turned and faced his death like a man rather than run away from it like a small frightened child granted him some sort of victory over her. He was also smiling like he knew how this would destroy any joy his sister got from killing him.

Azula's taunting grin turned into a nasty scowl, and she lowered her eye brows.

"Perhaps," Azula said in a voice as cold and lifeless as Death's himself, "you should be."

A bolt of blue lightning shot out her hand, heading straight for Zuko.

Zuko didn't dodge. Instead, he stuck out a hand and caught the lightning on two fingers. Then, directing the flow of energy through his body, he aimed the two fingers on his other hand toward the doorway and let the lightning loose.

BLAM! Bits of rock and dirt scattered everywhere. A cloud of dust and debris hung in the air, and for a moment Zuko was worried that it might not have worked. But then—

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—" SMACK! Alistair came flying backwards through the shattered doorway, out of the dust cloud, and landed roughly onto the stone floor not far from Zuko. He was bleeding severely from scratches all over his face and body, bits of his armor were falling off, and he wasn't moving.

"Alistair!" Zuko shouted, suddenly forgetting about his psychopathic sister and somehow ignoring the massive black bear that came trotting out of the gaping hole where the doorway once stood. He ran as fast as he could to Alistair's side, dropped down to his knees, and cradled his head. "Alistair? Alistair! Speak to me, damn you!"

"Hmmm?" Alistair mumbled. "Zu-Zuko?"

"Alistair, buddy…just hang in there, alright?" Zuko sounded almost hysterical in comparison to his usual stoic self. "It's going to be ok. I'll get us out of here. I'll—"

Alistair held a finger up to his lips, silencing him. "It's over Zuko. I'm not going to make it."

Zuko shook his head. "No." He insisted. "No! We're going to be ok, Alistair! We're going to make it back home! I won't let you die here! I won't let them hurt you. I-I won't. I—" His eyes burned with tears.

Around them, Nightmare Keep began to tremble and shake as the blue flames devoured the entire building. Azula was walking casually over to them; there was no need to hurry anymore. They were done for. From the opposite side of the room, Morrigan—now fully human once again—did the same.

"You might still be able to make a run for it." Alistair pointed out. "Make it back to Camp Respite, heal, try again another day."

"No." Zuko responded firmly. "No. If they want you, they're going to have to take me too."

"You royal idiot." Alistair murmured, smiling slightly, but then his face turned grave again. "Zuko...I've got to tell you something."

"Ye-yes, Alistair?" Zuko choked out, trying to push back his tears.

"If I've got to die…I'm glad it's going to be by your side."

There was a short pause. Finally, Zuko broke it, as he had become accustomed to doing.

"Alistair…there's no one I'd rather spend my last few moments with than you."

"But back at camp—"

"I didn't mean it. Not a word. I just couldn't bear the thought of…of falling in love with you and then never seeing you again—"

Lightning was twirling in the air above Azula as she prepared the killing blow for her brother.

"—and I thought I was saving us both from a broken heart, but now I see that love, no matter how brief, always deserves a chance!"

Morrigan's hands were glowing black with entropic energy, which she was massing up to send surging through Alistair's body.

"I love you, Zuko." Alistair finally admitted as Nightmare Keep began to collapse around them.

"I love you too, Alistair." Zuko confessed. The two prince's face drew closer together—

Azula released her lightning.

Morrigan released her spell.

Their lips met.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a blinding flash of white light.

From somewhere in the blinding whiteness, Koh's voice resonated.

"The darkness within us manifests with a physical body in the Realm of Dreams. It feeds on the lies we tell others and ourselves, it thrives off our hidden fears, it exists in all the stony dark places of a man's heart, wherever there is greed, jealousy, hate, or anger. No man is capable of defeating the darkness within by himself…"

Koh's voice faded away, and Belial's took its place. "But with an ally, perhaps; one who is strong where you are weak, one who can help you travel the distance no man can travel alone, one who can care for you and teach you to care for another, one who can teach you to laugh, to love, and to cry, then maybe, just maybe, there is the _smallest_ chance that you will not die; the evil within your heart could be defeated without you ever striking a blow, and the dark inside of you could be transformed…into light."

Alistair blinked. He was still in Nightmare Keep, he was sure of it. Only…it didn't look the same anymore.

All around him, there was light. It came pouring in through the massive windows that lined the walls, it bounced off the white-and-black tile floor, the white pillars that held the great hall, and reflected off of the gold that lined the white door that now stood in the center of the room.

In another corner of the room, he found Zuko sprawled out on the floor.

Immediately Alistair got up (and found that he was shockingly devoid of any bear-mauling related injuries) and rushed over to Zuko's side, shaking him awake.

"Hmmm? Wha?" Zuko bolted upright. "What happened? Are we dead?"

"I don't think so. I think—" Alistair started, but something caught his eye and he didn't finish.

Morrigan and Azula were eyeing each other over in the center of the room, each looking at the other as if this was the first time they had ever really _seen_ them. After a long while, it was Azula who finally broke the silence.

"That's a really sharp-looking blouse you've got there." She complimented Morrigan, talking, for once in her life, as if she were speaking to an equal rather than somebody she was inherently better than. "Careful. I bet it could puncture the hull of an Empire-Class Fire Nation battle ship, leaving thousands to drown at sea. Because it's so sharp." Morrigan looked the fiery princess up and down, and then smiled ever so slightly.

"Want to go threaten some priests with me?" She asked, offering Azula her hand.

"Together we will be the most powerful couple IN ALL THE WORLDS!" Azula cheered, accepting it. The two walked toward the doorway. When they got to the door, they walked straight through it like it wasn't even there, and disappeared.

There was a mechanical sound, like the sound of a key in a lock.

Then the door swung open, pouring more blinding white light into the room.

The way back was finally open. They could finally go home.

The pair of princes turned and faced each other.

They both knew that they couldn't stay. Alistair was certain that the Warden was going to need his help if she wanted to stop the Blight and save Fereldan from Teryn Loghain and the Archdemon for real, and Zuko believed now more than ever that his destiny, whatever it was, lay somewhere back home with the Avatar.

So the two approached the doorway, turned to each other, and said goodbye for the final time.

Then they stepped over the threshold together, hand in hand.

The white light overtook them, pulling them each in separate directions. Slowly, the two princes started to disappear, each being transported back to their respective universe.

"Will I ever see you again?" Alistair called to Zuko as he began to vanish right out from under his hands.

Zuko just smiled back at him.

Then, right before the two star-crossed lovers vanished from each other's arms completely, he leaned in close to Alistair and whispered in his ear:

"In your dreams."


End file.
